OC oneshots
by Just Slightly Obsessed
Summary: What it says on the tin. Various one-shots of my original characters. Probably mostly angsty, as befits my characters.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello! :)**

**This is a story which will consist of my various OC ramblings, so if you're not interested in OCs then sorry! I probably won't update often, but this is just because I often feel the urge to write things in depth which don't belong to a particular fandom.**

**This chapter is a GONE RP one-shot of my character, Blaze, and for anyone who knows the RP, this is set after the 5 years later roleplay in an AU wherein... well, you'll see. I don't own Melinda, Mia, Zeb, Sophia or Lucyna, they belong to SapphireOceans, .Leopard. and Puppy. Thanks you guys! :)**

**Urm... enjoy! :)**

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><p>They come back to me every night.<p>

I get by, most days, with a mediocre existence. I eat enough to make them happy that I'm not trying to kill myself, and beyond that I sit and merely exist. They prefer me like that anyway. I'm the least of their problems. Good to know that someone's happy with me.

Occasionally some guy comes up and starts at me. And I've experienced some pretty horrific things here, since they found out that I tend to wake screaming at all hours of the night. It's not like I'm a tough guy or anything, now that I've quite literally fought all the fight out of me, and with all my weapons off me I'm an easy target. But I've been here long enough now that they've moved on to fresher meat.

I haven't stopped screaming. I hardly speak but for screaming anymore. They got me a psychiatrist, but I don't talk to him. I don't want to tell him. I wouldn't wish what I know on anyone.

During the day, I'm blind. At night, I dream. And everything I've seen for the last fifteen years has been horrific. The snatches of vision I caught when I was evil, when I was dead, are rearranged in my brain and form everything I don't want to remember. The people whose names I can't even say anymore, can't even think anymore, fighting, crying, dying in front of me.

Sometimes, I'm with the Darkness again. I'm with the devil incarnate again, smiling at her, flirting with her, kissing her. I want to pull away from her so badly, and then when I do, she stares at me and her face melts into someone else. One of the other people who were hurt because of me, staring at me with bloodshot eyes.

Sometimes, I'm bodiless again. I'm standing by her as she's dying on the floor, dying for the man I hate, killed by a girl I loved. I can't do anything, I can only watch as she tells a worthless man that she would do anything for him. The only one who should have come back untouchable didn't. She came back far too vulnerable, and then had to experience the same thing again and again. Her face, a bathroom, a kitchen, screaming insults at a red-haired girl.

Sometimes, I'm back in the room again, my cousin screaming and crying out. My name, his name, their names. Her face as pale as a corpse's, slowly fading to exactly the same pallor as a corpse's. The only person on this earth whose blood I'm proud to share, slowly slipping away from me.

Most of the time, I'm back with him.

I never saw anything. She led me to him, with her sweet enthusiasm for all things illegal, and the hundreds of weapons of which I never worked out the origin. I remember his voice, his rusty sarcasm still mocking my fury as he drowned in his own grief. He never took my hatred of him seriously. He didn't even take it seriously when I was killing him.

I was charged with drug possession, theft, assault and murder, all of which I committed. She was taken away to an insane asylum again, and I was put here. I've been here for ten years. I'll probably never leave here. I don't want to. I don't want to have to face their children, or to have to explain to my best friend why I killed the man she'd been in love with for her entire life. Someone might think I was a brave guy, with what I've experienced and what I've done and where I am. Truth is, I'm an utter coward.

And I can't stop thinking about them. In my head she's an angel, and he's a demon. She'd be in heaven, and he'd be in hell. But how can she have heaven without him? And how can he be in hell if he's with her? The only way – the _only _way – it works is that they're both in heaven. They were both good people. And I'm the demon, I'm the one who brutally murdered a good guy and left his children orphaned. They'll grow up, screwed up like their parents, end up on the wrong side of the law like me and get killed or worse. Maybe the Darkness is still out there. And the people who could have protected them best are dead or incapacitated.

They've never visited me. Nobody has.

Some nights, when I've finally stopped myself from screaming and my cell's quiet again, I vow that I'm going to get out and put things as right as I can. I force myself to say the names I've tried to forget and the deep love that I feel towards each and every one of them, even if I don't really like them, simply because they're part of me and they always will be.

I tell myself that Melinda's gone and she's not coming back. I tell myself that Lucyna's getting help, and that's what she needs right now. I tell myself that Mia wouldn't want me to destroy myself like I've been trying to do. I tell myself that Zeb's with her again now, and that's the best place for him. I tell myself that Sophia's the only one left now, and that I owe her the rest of my life as an apology.

But by the time the sun comes up again, my fear returns, and I know I'll never get out of here. Not because I can't. Because I'm too scared, and too angry, and too desperate to prove myself right about myself. Because I hate myself too much.


	2. Chapter 2

**Mm-hmm. I have nothing better to do with my life.**

**This is probably pretty bad, I just chucked it out and decided to upload it straight off cos I'm impulsive like that... XD 'Tis a one-shot from the perspective of my OC Realth, from the Hunger Games roleplay set up by SapphireOceans, to whom I offer my enormous thanks. If you especially enjoy this for some random reason, read the RP. It's fairly epic, if you ignore the fact that one of the best characters accidentally got deleted, so it doesn't make much sense...**

**I'm rambling. Cat belongs to SapphireOceans, Faith belongs to ThirdSnowLeopard, and Symonn who is mentioned in passing a couple of times (because I can't get him out of my head XD) belongs to Banshees2ndHusband. The Hunger Games belongs to Suzanne Collins.**

**Enjoy :)**

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><p>Those few moments were the best of his life.<p>

He wasn't sure quite how long it had lasted. Time definitely slowed down when he was having fun. His brain worked in overdrive, remembering every little detail of what he saw and heard, storing it for when he was so bored he could hardly stay awake, replaying in his mind over and over again. He could watch all the most exciting events of his life as much as he wanted. And these moments? They were priceless.

It was a shame that he didn't have very long to enjoy them.

There had to be some sort of irony in his situation, but it was hard to tell when he was bleeding profusely from the stomach, a gleaming shaft of white bone gaping from the hole there. Pain was wracking his body, worse than any of the aches he'd felt from his illness before. And yet somehow, he was still able to smile, and talk to the little girl towering over him, and remember the moments that he wanted to be watching when he finally left the world.

_Faith, smirking at him, knife in hand, pinning him to a tree, slicing at him and nearly killing him... again... and again... and again..._

Easily his fiercest opponent. It was stupid of her to get all affectionate over little Kitten. Then again, he couldn't help but feel a little pride as Cat glared down at him, trying to pretend she wasn't about to cry. He'd helped her to this. He'd helped her on her way from a helpless little girl to a fully fledged murderess. She might survive now, because of him.

Any other guy in his situation might be horrified right now, to be at the mercy of a twelve year old girl. Not him. Sure, it was a little embarrassing – although to be honest, the identity of the body he'd tripped up on was more embarrassing than his upcoming death itself – but he didn't have enough dignity left to care that much. He'd never been an honourable person; he'd claimed to be, when it suited him, but ultimately he was the sort of guy who was perfectly prepared to string up a little girl in a tree to get her overprotective friend to come and save her.

_Cat, screaming again, crying as his hand collided with the side of her face, shouting out Faith's name as she hung in mid air, swinging over the knife..._

She had honour. She had her knife pressed to his throat right now, trying to look tough but offering to kill him out of what he knew was pity. He was going to die, end of story, whether now, in an hour, in two. It was strange, really. He'd tortured her. He'd killed her best friend. All her nightmares until the end of her life would be about this place, and about him – he smiled at the thought – but she was still prepared to have mercy on him.

And she was supposed to be a Career tribute. Then again, so was he.

_The knife, flying through the air, a scream piercing the silence as a girl leapt forwards, the metal embedding itself deep into her chest..._

She was about to do it. He could see it in her eyes, a sort of steely determination that he'd seen before, in her moments of purest anger. He smiled. Even though he could hardly move, he wasn't going to make this easy for her. She'd remember him. For the rest of her life, she'd never be able to understand him. Nobody would. The whole of Panem was watching them right now, had been watching them all, all the way, caught in the bizarre mixture of hatred and lies and loyalty. Nobody would forget this Games, the one where every rule ever written seemed to fall apart. Genuine, solid alliances. A weird boy with the capacity to fall in simpering love with every girl he met, whose body even the Capitol didn't want. A triple way murder – four way if you counted the stick. And this little girl, picked to be killed but refusing to die, killing District Twos left right and centre, avenging the death of her ally-turned-sister. Playing to win.

_Okay then, Kitty Cat. You can win. This time._

This last time. She could get out of here alive. She'd win the Games, help her family, whatever it was she wanted to do. She'd train the District Four tributes - save them all – and live the rest of her life. In fear. In memories. In wishing she could have done something to save Faith, trying to pretend that the Games had never ever happened.

In remembering him.

He'd be there. For the rest of her life, he'd be there. Stalking her, mocking her, refusing to let her go because he would never let her win again. He'd always dealt in death, always did anything to end the life of his opponent. He'd lost his dignity for it, he'd lost his life for it. But he was bored of death now. This girl, the one who'd finally bested him, would be the one he'd destroy in life.

He continued to smile, staring up at her as she finally cut his throat.

_See you later, Kitten._


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello m'dears.**

**Bored and with nothing else to do, here is a little one-shot for an equally boring character whose life I'm trying to spice up a little. Aaron is of little consequence as of yet but I'm hoping this outpouring of angst will add a little interest to him. And I'm also very worried about why I'm not drowning under the mountains of GCSE work that has been promised me... :S**

**Still. World, Aaron, Aaron, world. ****SapphireOceans owns Morenven, Mia, Cassie and Melinda, and ThirdSnowLeopard owns Zeb, Rorri and Rai. Enjoy, people...**

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><p>Aaron reckoned that most people who thought they hated the world didn't know exactly what it was about the world that they hated. Either that, or they could come up with a very long list and complain incessantly about it ad nauseum. One way or another, it was pretty pathetic. Very few other people, if any, felt the way he did about everybody they saw on the street, every advert and shop window, every TV show and film and book and word anybody ever said. He could look a newborn baby in the eyes, see it smiling up at him, and hate it.<p>

He hadn't always been like this. He'd been a good natured kid, albeit loud and argumentative, but that was to be expected in a family with five brothers. His parents, ultimately, had been good people. Even now, years after he'd last seen them, he could acknowledge this in a detached manner. Not that they loved him anymore, after what he'd done to his younger brother. The kid had been asking for it. But they were good people; they wouldn't have been able to see that.

It was at the age of ten that he started to notice the girls. They were changing. Not their bodies, mostly they stayed the same. Their actions. Their clothes. The way they did their hair. Their lips were getting shinier and their eyelashes darker. Their skirts shorter. Their laughs higher pitched. Their shoes taller. The way they looked at him, from the corners of their eyes, with a simper and a smile. And he wasn't stupid, even as a kid. He'd known what makeup was, and he knew about sex and all of that stuff. But still, it had confused him. Everything was suddenly different.

Secondary school was even worse. First the girls actually changed, and their blood bitchiness levels shot sky high. His friends suddenly started seeing him as worthless except as a potential boyfriend. Then the boys decided they were men, and started acting accordingly. Aaron gradually came to accept that he'd do the same. Any month now. Any day now, he'd get what they were talking about. He'd understand exactly what all these songs and films were going on about, why exactly girls were so entrancing.

But when his brother, a year younger and considerably less mature, starting acting more like his cohorts than he did, he started to wonder if there was something wrong with him.

He became much more solitary. His suddenly worsening migraines didn't help, as they generally meant he spent a day or two at home every couple of months rather than at school. His friends drifted away; he didn't care about the same things as them anymore. His brothers pushed him around without achieving much of a response. His parents were worried, wanted to know what had happened to make him like this. They'd subtly asked him if his interests lay in men rather than women, and been even more worried when his answers proved negative. They'd even taken him to a doctor a couple of times. Fact was, it made things worse. All of it. Life itself was making him worse. Everyone seemed to be desperate for him to be normal, whatever the hell that was, and Aaron was desperate not to be noticed. He just wanted to blend in.

Slowly, very slowly, he began to realise exactly how different he was to everyone else.

It wasn't that in itself which made him hate. He entered the FAYZ at fourteen and a half with mere resentment inside him, particularly towards men. He'd even made a friend there; Morenven had been a nice girl, with her own fair share of traumatic events to cope with. Under the circumstances, it would have been difficult for her to try and hit on him anyway - or so he'd thought at the time, before he heard about Zeb and Mia and Melinda and all that emotional bullshit – so it was hardly surprising that they'd got on.

But then _it _found him. And it wasn't long before it drove out any thoughts other than hate from his mind. Morenven was completely forgotten.

To this day, he wasn't sure why the Darkness had even wanted him. His power was nothing special, nothing it couldn't do itself if it felt so inclined. Possibly it was hoping for a male follower who was the least bit competent. Possibly it saw how close his mind was to tipping over the edge. Whatever the cause, the Darkness and he had never had the smoothest of unions, not like Rorri's or Cassie's, but it was adequate enough for both their purposes. It had gained a faithful, albeit reluctant, servant, and he had lost his humanity enough to not care about the feelings of those perverted, narcissistic, degrading, sex-obsessed _idiots _anymore...

His brother was the first he tracked down, the first to die. The punishment of his family for not leaving him be, making him think he was a freak when he appeared to be the only sane one left on this earth. When the wall came down, he could fake grief well enough to be let back in with open arms, but it wasn't the same. He wasn't just solitary anymore. He was utterly self-absorbed, merely watching the world with critical eyes that judged everything they saw. The Darkness stayed with him, offering limitless depths of hatred in return for his performing menial tasks for its all-consuming plan, of which he knew a little and not enough to really care.

To be honest, everything had probably been part of its plan. It slowly cultured anger in Aaron, teaching him to despise the girls that winked at him as he passed, the guys that took it up when he didn't respond to them, his reflection, cursed with the looks of the movie stars he loathed, even the children whose innocence was nothing when he thought of everything that had led them to exist. By now, he was capable of hating something just by imagining it. It wasn't difficult, not when every song and word and glance was filled with lust. The whole world, humans, animals, even plants, had been contaminated.

It was the Darkness' fault, ultimately. He knew there were lots of people who shared his orientation – or lack thereof – who didn't feel this way. He knew, in the same detached part of his brain which still remembered his parents as good people, that the world didn't necessarily deserve the utter loathing he felt for it. It was his twisted mind which found fault. But they were the ones who had first labelled him twisted simply for not joining in with their games. The selfishness of them all was such that it didn't matter if they didn't deserve it. If their obsession with the thing he despised could take everything over, why shouldn't his obsession with destroying it help to bring about the end of the world?

He was called back a couple of times to help with the Darkness effort, which he reluctantly did. His companions being mostly arrogant brats and lunatic sluts, it was as pleasant as being stabbed repeated times through the back of the throat with a fork. The only way he could stand it was by examining his situation through an intellectual light, which cast some vague shadow of amusement on the whole thing and managed to shield his fury. It was interesting to see how the Darkness had manipulated each individual: Cassie and Rai from ignorance and innocence, such as it was; Melinda, from her bone-deep narcissism; Rorri, from her total lack of any rationality at all. There were only a handful of them who could still claim sanity, and while Aaron was pretty sure he could still consider himself one of those, it was only a matter of time. Every day he got a little closer to losing his temper, big time. And while the higher ranking members still thought he was an idiot – an idiot who they still harboured the hope might pay them some attention if they played their cards right - all the more gratifying it would be when he finally did.

His own allegiance to the Darkness had clearly been bought through the promise of destruction. A promise which had not yet been fulfilled.

He'd never wanted world domination, or control, or anything. He didn't like himself enough for that; he was part of this filthy race just as much as anyone. He'd only ever wanted the end of it all, and he was perfectly happy to burn himself if he was allowed to watch the world burn first. The Darkness was a means to an end. He hated it as much as he hated anything. But it wouldn't be long before he didn't even have to hate that anymore.

One way or another, there was going to be an end. He could feel it coming. If he was going to die, he was going to die, and that wasn't a problem for him. But if he wasn't going to die, if the Darkness was going to win and at least a little of the world would be under his control, he would finally be able to release this blistering wrath that ate away at his insides like acid. Even Rorri and her band of bastard children wouldn't be able to stop him.

They all thought their own lives were miserable. They all thought he was a waste of testosterone. They all thought of him as just cannon fodder.

Well this front line private wasn't going to prove them wrong.

He was just going to charge straight on in and destroy them all.


	4. Chapter 4

**So it's Sapph's birthday. Nearly. Horray! :D Happy birthday deary :) Here's the one-shot, as promised, although this isn't my best... It started off as Blaze and Cat, then it went to Blaze and Melinda, and now it's just Blaze angsting at the world as ever. I apologize for the depression evident in this. It's AU of After Abotsly - AU because Blaze would never do this XD So it's a little OOC. **

**Blaze is mine, Cat, Mia and Melinda are Sapph's, Lucyna is Puppy's, Zeb is Meeegan's. But not for much longer, because I will steal him. Enjoy as much as you can...**

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><p><em>My girls...<em>

It's harder not to give in than he will admit.

She probably knows it anyway. Maybe that's why she herself is refusing to give in. It's harder to force yourself not to obey your subconscious when it's being whispered to you from another person's mouth. Even if it means betraying his girl.

_Lucyna, sweetheart..._

But he brings up the memories that are usually too painful for him to want to remember, and the pain forces away the temptation and the tugging of the part of his conscience that's telling him he can't let his daughter die. His daughter, his only child... Cat...

_Cat..._

Cat who's not even really his daughter. Cat who he promised he wouldn't lie to again. Cat who is being bullied for her loyalty to him, and yet all he can do is go behind her back and kiss a woman who's not her mother. Kiss a woman who helped kill her real mother, no less.

_I am so sorry. Really, really sorry._

Time after time, he gives in and then chickens out. He's being pulled in so many directions he can't tell which are which. His duty as a father, a boyfriend, a brother, his own fear, his own disgust, his own temptation, his own longing for the old days and a time when he wouldn't have to grovel at the feet of the girl he hates most on this earth. So many lies he has to tell. So many damn secrets. At a time when he has to be strong for his daughter, when her life is in danger, he can't even work out what he wants anymore. Does he want her safe or happy? Should she be in charge of her own destiny, or should he know what's best for her? If he tells her, he knows what she's going to say. But it's too late for that now anyway; he's in too deep to be innocent but not deep enough to save her.

And it's making his head hurt.

_I'm pathetic. I'm so pathetic that you don't deserve me, neither of you, you deserve so much better than this wreck of a man in your lives._

He tries not to think about it. He tries to concentrate on other things, enjoy the time he spends with his family while he can. They are, after all, far and away the best thing in his life.

_I love you both so much that I don't know what to do..._

It doesn't work.

_She wants me to betray you both, in return for keeping you safe. It's like the woods again, Luce, only we're not fifteen anymore. I only wish we were. I knew what to do when I was fifteen. Now I have no idea._

The bitch kept asking him if it was painful to talk to his daughter, and when he'd said no, it wasn't a lie. But he can't say the same anymore. Remembering that Mia's dead doesn't provoke the same searing pain it had fourteen years ago; it's become a dull ache now, an omnipresent heartbreak. Remembering that Mia died for her child, and that he isn't doing anything – no, not even that – that he's refusing to help her... that hurts. That's a stab of self-loathing and fear.

_I'm so scared... I can't keep living like this, I can't do it._

It doesn't help that he's never seen her. It doesn't help that whenever he dreams about her, it's Mia. Mia with those blue eyes that he loathes so much.

_But you're so brave. Both of you. All of you. Everyone I know is so brave and so good, and I've never been like that. I just live._

He corrects himself as the word flits through his head. He doesn't loathe Zeb anymore. He's worse than Zeb will ever be. And he can only hope that he feels enough loyalty to Cat to keep her safe.

_But not anymore. Blaze is dead now, and he's going to stay that way for once. Nothing I can do will stop you guys from hurting. I'm not going to pretend I think I mean nothing to you. But this way, hopefully, you can move on from my betrayal._

He can only hope. He can only hope that it all works out okay. But he knows he's not going to help Cat by being with her. He's useless. He's blind and powerless and incapable of making his mind up. He's scared and ignorant and prejudiced. He screwed up his own life and now he's making hers miserable too.

He's been just as bad a father to her as his own was to him.

_It's not you. Don't think it's you for one second, Catherine Damian, because it's not._

The idea settles, consolidates and then concretes itself into his mind. He can't face it anymore.

_I betray everyone I love._

It doesn't make any sense, what he's doing, and he knows it. Breaking everyone's hearts again. But at least this way, he's punishing himself. He's taking himself away from everything he cares about. He won't know what happens to them. And it'll haunt him, for the rest of his life.

_This'll be the last time._

He stumbles off the coach and out into the cold air, the wind blasting through his hair. He shudders, pulling his jacket more tightly around him. He's back where he belongs, back where he first set himself up to ruin lives. It seems to have become his profession now.

"Excuse me?" A voice calls to his right, the familiar accent curling the words. "Are you okay there?"

It must be showing on his face, then. The knowledge that he's ruined the lives of every member of every family he's ever had.

"Hey, can you hear me? Do you want us to get the police? What's your name?"

Concern. They shouldn't be concerned. He's left everything that can hurt him back in England. Here he's got a shell. Here there's nothing for him to lose again.

_Please hate me._

"Damian," he says softly. "Call me that."


	5. Chapter 5

**Why hello again.**

**Boredom. Procrastination. Love for the new RP. Voila.**

**And what is it with Blaze and his letters? I dunno. Angsty Blaze/Zeb non-pairing hatred to come, by the way, but this was easier to write. Mia, Sophia and Bryony are all Sapph's. This. Isn't. Angsty. *dies in horror* Enjoy! :D**

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><p>Dear Bryony,<p>

Hey, sweetheart. How're you doing? If you've found this somewhere in the attic and have decided to read it despite the directions on the front like the curious kid you are – yes, I've got you sussed already – then put the letter down and walk away, my dear. If you get to eighteen and I'm not dead, then you can read it. Before then, do what your father damn well tells you, okay?

Ahem. So Sophia gave birth to our first child a few days ago – congratulations on getting through that, by the way, it looked pretty damn painful – and being the miserable sod that I am, I figured we might die before you've really grown up properly. So I decided to write you a letter just in case, and I'll try and persuade your mother to do the same, though she'll probably tell me to stop being so morbid. Like hell. I've been an adamant pessimist all my life, and I'm not stopping now.

Yeah, if you have lost me, it's probably for the best really. I'd have driven you mad. Still, the tiny little crushed optimist inside of me that hopes I might actually get to bring you up is looking forward to ruining your life for you. I still honestly can't get over the fact I have a daughter because I still feel like I'm about fifteen years old myself. I keep asking Sophia if she had an affair and you're actually not mine.

(You are, by the way. You've got my eyes. Do yourself a favour and take care of them.)

Right now you're sleeping in the corner. Say hi to your past self, Bry. You're absolutely gorgeous – as I'm sure you still are – and that's not just bias on my part because you look like your mother; everyone says so. Then again, they might just be agreeing with me because they're scared I'll kill them if they don't. I'm not violent towards my colleagues as a rule, you understand, but my line of employment does mean I have a fair few weapons, and the smile that spreads across my face when I think of you is enough to scare anybody.

I realise I'm wittering on here. I also realise I'm swearing far too much and I have absolutely no idea how old you are when you're reading this, but quite honestly I swear a lot and I'm not going to lie about that in a letter. If anything this is a way of getting across to you who I am and letting you know that I absolutely adore you. Whether or not you take this as a good thing is up to you, I guess.

Introductions then, now I've scared you off. My name is Blaze, my darling, and I'm your father, in case you hadn't picked that up. I'm Irish and my family history is very confusing. Might as well scrap it all and say I don't have one, besides you guys of course. Unless of course a certain ginger bitch crops up claiming to be my sister – she's not anymore, okay? Sophia'll explain it. My life has been fairly interesting to the extent that I've been blinded, died, become a ghost and been trapped in a bubble for a year. In fact you're probably one of the only kids who can claim that both their parents have died. How's that for freaky?

I'm afraid you'll have to deal with freaky, sweetheart, it's everywhere. You yourself may well have some sort of power or other, if you've got as many of your mothers' genes as it would appear. But of course you know all this; if you can read this, you know this. So I won't go there. I'll tell you about your mother instead. Because it's your mother that brings out the best in me, and I guess if I'm dead, that's what I want you to see of me.

I think I've been in love with her since I saw her heart break. From that moment on I vowed that I was never, ever going to let anyone hurt her again. She was my best friend for years before I realised that I was completely and utterly hers. She's the best girl on this earth – shortly to draw with you, I'm sure – and you are insanely lucky that she's your mother. Hell knows why she decided to marry me, but hey, I'm not complaining. When you're done with this letter you can go and find her, tell her she's amazing and that we both love her. Then give her a hug from me. Nope, death will never hold me down.

Of course, if she happens to be dead as well, then I'm really sorry for bringing it all up. I'll get her to write a letter as well, but in case you don't find it or something, she loves you. So much. She'd do anything for you, she really would. She's been staring at you every minute she's been awake for the past few days; I've had to force her to sleep. If she is alive, of course, you already know this. So do what she tells you, dammit, because she's right. No, I don't care. No. Nope. Do what she says. Do it. I mean it.

I'm sorry that I've missed your life, sweetheart. I'm sorry about whatever difficulties you're facing, that I'm not there to help you with them. And I hope you can forgive me for leaving you. I know how shit life is, particularly your life, probably, as you're related to two resistance members with particular feuds against the highest ranking followers of the Darkness. But hopefully you'll realise this is the good fight. We're doing it for you now, we're fighting for your future. And if either of us die along the way, we died for you. Unless, I dunno, I got hit by a bus or something. In which case it was probably an accident. But I still love you.

I'd blabber on forever if I could. I will, hopefully, and drive you up the wall with it in the process. But I can't write anymore; I'm being dragged away by a certain beautiful blonde lady who's asking me to carry her equally beautiful daughter over. So I'll just scribble this down before she gets impatient enough to throw a pillow at me.

I have no idea how to be a father. I've thought and thought about it. It still utterly terrifies me, but I've got a plan. A plan of the basic principles I want to teach you, somehow. So in case I can't later I'll lay them out for you.

You are beautiful and loved. Nothing will change that. You don't have to act, speak, eat or dress in a particular way to make yourself so. Value what you have, especially the stuff you don't realise you have. Follow your conscience. Do what's right. If you do, life becomes a whole lot more worthwhile.

Don't drink. Don't do drugs. Don't have sex. (Dearest, darling Sophia who will probably have to deal with the full horror of this: I love you.) Don't join the Darkness – I genuinely mean that. No matter what it says, sweetheart, it is evil and I will give my life just to show you that. Choose what matters to you and defend it adamantly. Fall in love. Get married. Have kids. Preferably in that order. Of course, if you choose to not get married, or become a nun, or run away with a horse, it's up to you, but I would have to recommend the path I've gone down because I can tell you now, I don't regret it one bit. I never will.

And finally I'll leave you with the bit of advice I left your mother in a letter I wrote her the last time I thought I was going to die... Give your life for those you love, and screw everyone else.

With all the love I can possibly muster,

Dad


	6. Chapter 6

**This was updated quite quickly for once. *proud***

**Blaze/Zeb angst, as promised. It turned out kinda different. I wanted to try more word-paint type stuff, but I don't think it quite worked. Ah well.**

**Evil Darkness AU, a potential scenario, dunno quite how it's going to work out yet. But here we go. Enjoy :)**

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><p>Words can't describe this.<p>

It's agony. But agony isn't enough. Agony could never describe this poison, growing stronger inside me. Burning flames licking at my face, ice seeping through my veins, thunder roaring in my mind. A knife twisting in my stomach. Bile welling in my chest.

Waking, sleeping, it's all the same. Vision blurred with tears and tendrils of smoke, cigarettes whose fumes grow eyes and teeth, leering at me from the shadowy corners of my room, my mind. Blissful lack of presence, lack of anything, before the smirk and the blue and the darkness invade again, pushing in, pushing in...

Appearing everywhere. Butterflies in my stomach, heart leaping every time her eyes flicker in my direction, realisation, hope shimmering like the dawning sun on the horizon, smirking, darkness, get away, leave us alone, you don't belong here...

More darkness, lit by a candle, wide, beautiful eyes in a pale face, sweat, fear, footsteps growing louder. Too much, my shield of ice cracking, a small black box, glinting in the fire, our eyes meet and it's him, smirking, darkness, get away-

A cellar, more candlelight, shimmering beauty, but she's more beautiful, far more. Pure white, hushed voices, prayers and rings, and she's mine, she's actually mine, then vines of darkness, the blue, the smirking, no, no, she's mine, she's-

_She's yours... she's yours... she's yours..._

You don't _belong _here.

Waking, cold, shivering. A small hand clutches mine, her gaze on my face, concerned but scared. I wrap my arms around her, golden curls beneath my fingers, sobs wracking my body as I remember another girl's hair, stolen from me.

I let her go. I let him in. I let it happen. Never again. Never letting anything in again. The ice shield seals up again. Smooth, unbreakable, bitterly cold.

And with it comes a fragment of peace. A shard of sanity in this mucked up world of mine. She will come back to me. I will make bloody sure of that.

I will not let her down. I will not let her suffer. If she really suffers. But I won't think like that. Clean cut, clinical, another part of my subconscious gone. Simple. Easy, really.

She will come back to me. To us. Bryony and I.

And as for him?

_Bubbling rage, fury surging upwards..._

I know full well that if I ever see Zeb Cray again, one of us is going to end up dead. And I don't give a flying fuck which one it is.

I do, for them, I do, but not for me. If she's hurt, if she's dead... heaven help me, if she's dead, I can't, I won't, I-

No. Clean cut. Clinical.

Day to day. Working. Hunting. Seek, locate, destroy. The Darkness will fall. It _will_ fall. He will fall, I will make him pay...

I will.

I'm sorry, so sorry, Bryony, Sophia, I am, I tried, I swear I did, I'm trying, I love you, please, but I...

I will.

I keep my ring. My shield of ice is fortified with gold, enflamed with love, blessed by God. Keep the ring. Feel myself slipping, a glance at my fourth finger, tie me to sanity.

Tie me to sanity until he's in front of me saying those words he made me say, still burning my mouth with their putrid falsity, forcing him, say it, she's mine, she's mine, she's mine, she's mine-

Tie me to sanity. Please, please, tie me to sanity.


	7. Chapter 7

**Huzzah for procrastination and celebrating the end of another exam. Revision starts again tomorrow. ****Little bit of canonising a crack pairing, anyone? *cough* Presenting Megan's most canon ship... and no. It's not Zaze. Was speedily written, isn't especially good. Apologies.**

**Upcoming projects include Will character development/background jobby, including some W/C (XD), a long overdue outpouring of Alec angst which is still bubbling away in my brain, and possibly some Eoin whinings as well... Might even do some actual fanfiction shortly. *le gasp***

**I'm wittering as ever. Adonia and Rorri are Megan's, Melinda and Cassie are Sapph's. Enjoy. :)**

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><p>She was exactly the sort of person he hated.<p>

The eyes that slipped too quickly from his face down to his chest, the small possessive smirk that curled her lips, the slight shake of the hips as she moved towards him, ready with a greeting so sickly he felt like he'd get diabetes just from listening to her. Pound for pound, there was probably more makeup on her than either flesh or clothing. Shallower than a puddle left by a dehydrated woodlouse, she preened and giggled and batted her eyelashes like she thought she was being subtle about her intentions.

All in all, Adonia was definitely the sort of girl who knew full well that she could be wearing a boiler suit and still be featured prominently in the sick imaginations of the perverted male population, and yet still preferred to wander around wearing just enough to stop herself looking like a cavewoman.

Aaron could come up with criticism after criticism, snarky comment after snarky comment, and deliver them one after the other, blisteringly hot, like a series of bullets raining down on the girl's head. He did it nearly every time he saw her, at the merest provocation. Not that she tried especially not to provoke him; she actually seemed to quite enjoy the attention. Ignoring her did nothing. Eventually his scorn would bubble over, and she would stand back and smile at him, like an innocent little child. If little children were innocent anymore.

Her perseverance was infuriating. He made sure she knew that. He made sure everyone knew that. At the darkest moments of his rage, he'd scream at the Darkness itself, swearing blind that he'd rather spend a month locked in a small room with Melinda, Cassie and Rorri than be forced to say two words to Adonia. Actually – he corrected himself – make that three. Two words were easy, provided the second one was 'off'.

His adamance only made her worse. It only ever got worse.

So why was it feeling so much better?

Aaron knew for a fact that he would never fall in love. He would never get married, never have kids. It wasn't what he wanted; the very thought of it made him physically sick. Let alone that, he wasn't capable of it. Not a single girl or boy or genderless alien had ever made him feel like he wanted to be close to them. He'd become immune to sex through exposure, through living every day in a montage of obsessive perversion - since coming to the Darkness, even more so. Having to mentally communicate with a bunch of sluts, not one of whom could control their disturbing thoughts, was not a pleasant experience, to put it mildly.

And yet Adonia…

He didn't know what it was about her than he liked. It certainly wasn't the things she thought he liked. The superficiality of her personality made him shudder. On the rare occasions they spoke to each other for more than a minute before he left in disgust, all she talked about was sex. It was hard for him to see anything beyond that. He reckoned that was the point. It was pretty obvious what she wanted, and she clearly didn't value anything else much. And if she wasn't going to make it easy for him to see beyond her crude pantomime, he certainly wasn't going to put in the effort.

Still.

If she liked, Aaron knew she could have him at a look. Just one look, laced with a little power, and he'd be utterly lost to her. It was part of the reason why he hated her so much. He could blitz her with scathing remarks all he wanted, but ultimately he had no choice if she decided she was bored of their game. She never had.

Fifteen years, and she never had.

It was bizarre that he was even giving her credit for it. For not forcing her will upon a man who'd rejected her thousands of times.

But for a girl who was so recklessly promiscuous, fifteen years was a very, very long time.

Her perseverance was infuriating, and he made sure everyone knew it. Made sure everyone knew it in case, just for a moment, he started to admire her obstinacy. Admire that she'd risen to the challenge of converting the unconvertible. Admire that, for once in all their lives, she actually seemed to be playing fair.

He would never fall in love. Never had, never would. He knew that, he was happy with that. But if he had to… if he absolutely, categorically had no choice in the matter…

There was always a chance that the rebels would murder him first and save him the humiliation that such a degrading submission would bring.

He lived in hope.


	8. Chapter 8

**Bit of storytelling here :) Apologies if it's boring.**

**If I upload anything before this bit of Alec-ness that I've been saying I'll do for ages, please somebody hit me. I need to stop writing Blaze-related crap. XD**

**Anyhoo, Catherine and Mia are Sapphire's. Eoin, Niamh and Blaze are mine. I give you the most dysfunctional family since the Crays. *bows***

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><p>My name is Eoin Damian, and for a few months, I was the happiest man alive.<p>

I was a small-town guy, nothing unusual. Not especially good looking or intelligent; the sort of person who was known for being reliable rather than smart or funny. I was the sort of guy who would grow up to carry on the family trade, marry a local girl, have several kids, grow old quietly, that sort of thing.

I wasn't going to set the world on fire. Ironically, I think I did.

Fully prepared to fulfil the role dictated to me by society, I fell in love with a local girl as I prepared to join the family business. My first mistake was that I fell in love with _that _girl. _The _girl. The one people loved. The golden girl, the angel. So it seemed at fourteen.

Niamh Flanagan was perfect. Pretty – gorgeous – smart, funny. She wasn't shy and giggly; she talked, she laughed. She didn't blush and run at the sight of a boy. In fact there were rumours among the other kids that she did quite the opposite. A little too far the opposite for a good Christian village girl.

I didn't believe them. I wouldn't let my angel fall.

As we got older, I fell deeper and deeper in love with her. She became practically all I thought about. A smile from her could fuel me for a week, though I never spoke to her. But she smiled at other boys far more, and I, in my naivety, thought I would lose my chance if I stayed silent. I thought she'd marry someone else first. So I gathered up all my courage and said my first stuttering hello to her on my eighteenth birthday.

A year later, we were married.

It was fast, but I was scared, and she was like a hungry flame, burning brighter and faster than anything else in this world. I'd never expected her to actually marry me. I never thought she could love someone as monotonous, as dull, as reliable as me.

But Niamh Flanagan was Niamh Damian. We were in love – I was sure of it – and I was the happiest man alive. The was all I needed.

And quickly it became all I had. I was trained well as a baker, but my wife didn't want that life. She was bright and beautiful, and her life would be too. To the horror of my friends and family, we left the village and moved to Galway, the nearest big city. I didn't want to go; I was a shy country boy out of his depth. Niamh loved it.

I got a job there, and I tried as hard as I could for her. My determination led to my success. I did well for her. She was happy, I knew it, close to the busy city and her sister, who'd married some big-shot and whom she saw regularly, and with me. She was happy with me.

So happy that some nights she didn't come home at all.

I tried not to let it bother me. I was horrified at myself for even allowing doubts to creep into my mind. My angel would not fall. She loved me. I was happy.

But one night, when she'd said she was staying at her sister Catherine's, and then Catherine herself came round to visit, I finally allowed my misery to reveal itself to me. That night was my second mistake.

That night. That thrice-damned night.

Damn myself, for allowing myself to lose control, drink, lose myself to my own misery.

Damn Catherine, for being so damn kind, so understanding, for being so bloody pretty.

Damn Niamh, for choosing that night to realise that she loved me.

She came back to me in the morning, confessing everything, crying and begging for forgiveness. I think she'd been hurt that night, emotionally scarred somehow. She never told me. I never asked. All I knew was that she was kissing me and telling me she'd never leave again, that I was the greatest man she'd ever met and that she loved me, she loved me, she loved me.

A few weeks later she announced she was pregnant. And I was the happiest man alive.

Nine months. Nine months of bliss. My wife and me and our child, our beautiful baby. The doubts still plagued me, the knowledge that the child might not be mine. But I knew that it didn't matter. Whether it was mine or not, it was Niamh's, and Niamh was mine, and we were a family. That was all that mattered.

My happiness ended forever thirty seconds after our son was born.

First pride. Glowing, ecstatic, unbelievable pride. It was mine. _He _was mine. He looked like me. My hair, my jaw and nose, and Niamh's mouth and her eyes, oh, her blue eyes. Our baby. Our son. Her beautiful eyes.

And then I looked into my wife's own eyes to find them diluted with fury and heartbreak.

He wasn't supposed to be mine.

And he wasn't hers.

My son, a risky experiment, a desperate agreement between sisters, a child ripped from the womb of his mother and fixed in another woman's. The product of the worst night of my life, a drunken embrace between a heartbroken man and a haunted woman.

I didn't know that at the time, of course. I didn't understand anything. It was Catherine who told me; Catherine, the mother of my child, a woman I hardly knew, while the love of my life ran at the first chance.

Blaze, she called him. She left me with a guilt-ridden heart and a baby whose every movement, every smile, reminded me of her. His eyes, so like hers and yet so very much not hers, his very name. Blaze. A blaze of fury, the only spark I had left of my beautiful fiery Niamh.

My angel had fallen. And I was the most miserable man alive.

And then my third mistake. I hardly noticed it, hardly felt its impact until many, many years later. In the depths of my misery I relived the guilt of that night. I went to Catherine again, drunk out of my mind.

In the morning we went our separate ways, and I never saw her again.

I was broken without Niamh. I tried for my son, but I just didn't feel I could love him as much as I loved her. How could I? He was the reason I didn't have her. Everything about him provoked guilt and misery. For the first few years of his life, it was all I could do to look at him without crying.

As he grew up, he knew it. I began to see it in his eyes, the look of an abandoned child, and it killed me. I did love him, I did love him, I did, but her memory was so strong in me. I'd cut half a year off his life to try and forget the connection between them, moving his birthday to September from February. But nothing helped. The battle was already lost before it had even begun. I was too absorbed in my own misery, and it destroyed him.

By the time I realised how much, it was too late. Fourteen years old – fifteen, the voice at the back of my mind whispered – fourteen and a smoker, an alcoholic, an on-and-off drug user, an adrenaline junkie whose only love was the rush. He wasn't religious anymore, he wasn't a virgin anymore. He wasn't my son anymore.

And then I got a wakeup call. A really big damn wakeup call.

He lost his eyes. His gang warfare had permanently injured him, permanently mutilated him. My boy, my son, my baby… my girl's eyes…

And there it was. Like a slap in the face, my selfishness. My son, _my son_, had been blinded and my first thoughts were for my ex-wife's looks.

And I knew, deep in my heart, that he wasn't the only responsibility I was shirking. Because I'd been avoiding the knowledge that Catherine O'Sullivan had been divorced by her sterilised husband about five months after Niamh had left and she'd shown the first signs of being pregnant.

We moved. Blaze wasn't exactly happy about it, but it was my duty. I tried to track down the name O'Sullivan; I'd lost contact with Catherine, but I'd heard rumours of a care home in England. Arbour Bay was the name of the place. I went there as soon as I could, pursuing my lost daughter and bringing my estranged, mutilated son with me, away from the poisons of Galway.

My fourth and final mistake. The mistake I look back on with utter despair. Even when trying to do the right thing, I was wrong. Doom was following me.

I brought my son to Arbour Bay just as the Darkness fell over the town. Just as the adults vanished and the world was left in the hands of the fifteen year olds. The war for the earth began there, and my kids were right in the middle of it.

I was never one to set the world on fire. But now, with possessed children ruling every continent and resistance groups being massacred every day and with Blaze and Mia at the forefront of opposite sides, I feel like I might have done.

I never spoke to either of them again. I keep track, though, as well as I can. Mia is everywhere of course, glorious and beautiful as our leader. She has everything that any father could want for their daughter. She's rich, powerful, gorgeous, married, a mother. She's achieved so much. She didn't even need a father.

But she joined the Darkness, as her mother promised she would. She's on the wrong side. She's sadistic and cruel. My daughter is evil, and I have no one to blame but myself.

Blaze is trickier. His existence is practically unheard of, though I doubt they can keep him from the leaders. It's only through my minor position in the resistance – trying to help out the right side while not hurting my daughter – that I hear about him at all. He's on the right side. Sorted himself out, got a girl, I think, though even that's hushed up. He's a fighter, and absolutely adamant that he will fight for good. Even if it kills thousands of people. Even if it kills him.

But it will. It will kill him one day and he knows it. Everybody knows it. They say his name with the sort of regret they use for the recently dead.

Mia and Blaze. The bitter and the flame. My kids, tearing the world apart.

And it physically hurts to think it, but I can't help but wonder what would have happened if I hadn't made those mistakes. If I hadn't loved and cheated and tried to fix my family to no avail. If Blaze and Mia had never been born. The mistakes. Conceived by means of heartbreak, alcohol and Darkness. Torn from wombs, dumped on doorsteps, abandoned and trapped and twisted unspeakably, instruments for a cataclysmic future. Children whose parents deep down, for the sake of their own selfish interests, wish they'd never existed.

Would the world be a safer place, now, if things had been different back then?

I know there's no point in asking that question. I know the past can't be changed. And it's sick of me to even consider the idea that I'd rather my children weren't alive.

But I am sick. I look at what I did to my family, to Catherine, to my beautiful Niamh, and I realise just how sick I am. So much for the nice, quiet country boy I was supposed to be. Reliable as a sturdy old truck full of gasoline that falls in love with a bonfire.

I might have brought about the destruction of the whole world.

And those I love most will be the ones held responsible.


	9. Chapter 9

**Finally. Took me long enough.**

**Un petit peu d'angst et general musings from Alexaaaander. This is very strange. It's what comes of procrastinating while listening to French music and reminiscing about GCSE English lit.**

**The disclaimers will be long. Death Note does not belong to me. Anything in inverted commas is a quote from one of my many idols. Ophelia and her grandmother are Sapphire's, Lucas is Eilidh's, Arthur is Nina's and Darcy is Grace's. Alec and Michelle are mine. I am not in league with the Italian Mafia. There be swears in them there hills. Be forewarned.**

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><p>Once upon a time there was a princess.<p>

A princess. No. No airy-fairy, featherheaded, simpering princess would do. More like a queen. Beautiful, regal. Or an angel. Pure, good. A goddess, even, blasphemous as it might be. 'Swear by thy gracious self, which is the god of my idolatry.' Shakespeare. Much more fitting. No fairy tale bullshit for his girl. Only the best.

Words were important now. Words meant a lot. The wrong word at the wrong time, the wrong inflection, it could spell out doom for him now. It was all about the words. The clever games they all played, the false names and the battles of wit. Shields of words in a thousand languages, hiding the truth from those who would use it against them. And, of course, the written words. The all-important pen and paper.

He'd always admired language, though he'd never been very good at expressing himself. It was what came of being bilingual from a young age, he figured. The words got mixed up in his head as a child; he'd struggled trying to stay in the same language for a whole sentence. As he grew up, of course, his resentment towards all things French had led to his avid pursuit of English articulacy, an aim which he only seemed to have achieved through exposure to these mind games. The mind games of the geniuses he now encountered at every turn.

Yet after so many years of struggling to achieve self-expression through language, now he was trying to prevent his inner thoughts from revealing themselves. That was something like irony.

Side-tracked. Again. Once upon a time.

His beautiful, intelligent, spirited girl. Spirited – oh, more irony. Appropriate words were coming more easily to him now.

She was extraordinary. He'd known it as long as he'd known her, and he'd been right. She'd driven him to absolute misery, driven, it would appear, the whole universe into uproar along with his mind. Tortured him with her presence, tortured him with her absence, until he was almost free of her, and then she'd appear again.

'La belle dame sans merci hath thee in thrall.' Keats. French and English. How apt. He laughed quietly, the low chuckle reverberating around the room, breaking into the silence of the building.

There had to be, he decided, some people who were just different. Some people who the universe just couldn't live without. They did say that history repeated itself, and he was inclined to agree. There was definitely a theme emerging in his life, and it was centred on the one girl. The one glorious, radiant girl. If the universe couldn't live without her, he understood completely. He certainly couldn't either.

He could only hope that next time the universe picked someone a little less… well, a little less like Lia to be Michelle's hostess.

Ophelia Wormwood. He exhaled slowly, condensation forming on the window pane on which he rested his head. It was hard without her, he had to admit. He'd just about got used to associating her face with Michelle's name, just about got used to her height and her voice. Even now he expected her to come through the door, smiling as she saw him, hurtling across the room into his arms. It physically hurt when he closed his eyes and saw her pale face along with the other. Two ghosts to haunt his nightmares until she came back again.

He didn't like to remember how he'd made her cry. How his stupid slip of the tongue – words, again – had revealed the truth too soon, too bluntly. It wasn't completely his fault, of course. If she'd just listened to him, if she'd given him the chance to explain properly, it might have been okay. But no. The love of his life had returned in the form of an impetuous fifteen-year-old girl. Common sense had been beyond her. All three of them had paid the price for her mistake.

'She, too weak for all her heart's endeavour, to set its struggling passion free from pride.' And Browning as well. Poets damn well knew what they were talking about.

Maybe Helen of Troy had just never died. Maybe the same girl had moved through history, bewitching everyone in her path as she did. No – he rejected the idea as soon as it had entered his mind. That wasn't possible. Michelle was Michelle, had been from the start. She was entirely herself, no ancient ghost from thousands of years ago, and she'd belonged to no damn Menelaus, no Paris. She was his, and she had always been his, and she would always be his, for as long as he lived. Maybe longer.

Not that stupid Lucas's either. His mouth curled into a scowl. So bloody immature, that kid, didn't know when to let go. Hadn't been able to cope with not being wanted. He'd hurt her, more than once. Then he'd just buggered off into the realms of other unimportant people who were a waste of space in this world. If he ever found out Lucas's last name… well, he couldn't pretend it wouldn't be gratifying. Very gratifying. Fairly fitting, as well; the victor killing the failure. Sending a message. You don't get in the way of something like this. Monumental love. The centre of the proverbial hourglass.

He'd have to bide his time with that, of course. Names were tricky now anyway; everyone was so much more careful about giving them out. About giving any information out, actually. He was beginning to regret having sent Ophelia's body to her grandparents. It gave away far too much. He didn't know now who knew she was dead. It had been rash, one of those cracks in his defence that any enemy could so easily cut into.

Still. It had been too tempting to resist. The look on her grandmother's face would have been hysterical. He didn't think he was sadistic by nature, but there were certain people in this world who deserved what they got.

One person in particular deserved everything they had coming to them.

His eyes glanced down at the notebook, positioned on his lap, closed. This was the weapon that had killed her. At least once, possibly twice. He didn't quite understand what had happened yet, but he would. It wouldn't be long before that bastard was within his grasp again. And this time there wouldn't be any mistakes. There wouldn't be any silly little girl with a conscience that wouldn't listen to reason. He had the entire resources of the Italian Mafia at his disposal. And Arthur Thompson… whoever the hell he was, whatever the hell he thought he was doing, it was all coming to an end. Everything. That man had had control over him, over them, for the last time.

And once he'd gone, everything was going to be so much easier. Not perfect, of course. There was still Darcy to deal with, and she had a tendency to set up the worst of the mind games. He had to admit he was apprehensive of their next meeting. It was all the worse because he actually liked Darcy. He'd never meant to hurt her, but if she would get in the bloody way all the time, it was inevitable. Like it had been with his mother, in a way.

He'd try not to kill her. The world could do with having Darcy James around for a little while longer. As for the others, he was fairly convinced he would be doing everyone on the planet a favour by getting rid of them.

It was hard. He sighed again, closing his eyes. So damn hard. Carrying on without her. Coping with these bastards around him. Having to be so careful all the time with everything he said and did, planning, manipulating, trying to stay in control. Right now he was fairly secure. He had a notebook. He had a plan. It was a matter of waiting now, waiting for Arthur to be delivered to him, waiting for the police to try and intervene as they almost certainly would. And the all-important waiting for her to come back to him again, when the universe was good and ready.

It was really, really bloody hard.

But it was okay. It was okay, he would be fine. It was only a matter of time, and he'd grown used to being patient. That was what appeared to set him apart from the others. 'But at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot drawing near.' Their fear of death. Even the poets were afraid. He wasn't.

It seemed Time was on his side. Time didn't really mean as much to him as it did to everyone else. Maybe it would take a long time for everything to be perfect, but ultimately, he didn't care. It didn't matter how many times he screwed up, how many mistakes he made, how many people he lost along the way, because she would always come back to him. He knew it.

And in the meantime?

Alec opened the notebook, flicking through the pages until he found the name he was after. Michelle Daviau. He looked at it for a moment, before closing his eyes and pressing his lips against the paper, against her name. Then he moved, getting down from the windowsill he'd been perched upon and slipping the book into his pocket.

In the meantime, he was going to do his duty. Namely eradicate every living creature that tried to thwart the will of the universe.


	10. Chapter 10

**So boredom and general meh-ness inspired me to challenge myself. Fifteen minutes to write a drabble that was half decent. I failed, by the way - not only did this take half an hour but it's horrifically cheesy and has not nearly enough angst in it. Also, I have massacred somebody else's character here, for which I can only apologise profusely. **

**Why have I uploaded this, you may be asking, if it is so terrible? Honestly? Because I like this pairing. XD And I'm hoping for CC. And I need to get back into this character whose RP-ing I have been neglecting recently. So yes. Enjoy the cheese, if you can. -.-**

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><p>He hurried down the road, pulling his jacket tightly around him against the cold night air. He made a mental note to mention to her that it wasn't generally a good idea to arrange these meetings for the middle of the night. It was hard to get away from the house without one of the others waking up. With a house full of siblings and siblings' irritating boyfriends, and friends and various other hangers-on, one of them was inclined to decide to stay up until midnight or wake up when he was trying to escape.<p>

Escape. A small grin crossed his features as the word flitted through his head. Like a prisoner to their narrow-mindedness. There was his habit of making himself sound like some righteous hero once again, which couldn't be farther from the truth, of course. No, he was exaggerating yet again. He didn't really hate it there. He just didn't like having to keep everything a secret from them. After the FAYZ, he supposed it shouldn't really come as a surprise to him that everybody hated her. But he himself was an avid believer in the policy of 'forgive and forget'.

Hell, if he wasn't, he'd been a lot of serious trouble right now himself.

He arrived at the park slightly earlier than he'd anticipated. Now that they'd met up a good few times already, and he'd begun to realise that it generally took much longer for him to evade the questions of his various house-sharers than he'd originally thought, he'd begun leaving at least half an hour before the meeting was due to take place. Tonight, apparently, the interrogation had been less gruelling than usual. He frowned slightly. That was worrying. If he didn't know better, he'd have said that they'd worked out where he was going.

No. No, that wasn't possible. If that were the case, Mia would probably have physically restrained him. Chained him up in the basement or something. Still, it wouldn't be long before somebody worked out that he was leaving for a reason, and he really did not want anyone to follow him. If he'd thought the interrogations had been bad the first few times he'd tried to leave the house, he dreaded to think of the attack that would be launched if anybody had a suspicion of what he was actually doing.

He really didn't fancy spending the rest of his life locked in the basement. That would be utterly humiliating.

Leaning against the old oak tree where they'd decided to meet, he let out a soft sigh. He did like it outside at night. Since he'd got his sight back, he'd appreciated everything so much more than he had before. He felt like he was more aware of the world around him; his hearing had improved significantly during the period of blindness in his life, and his eyesight, for some bizarre reason, also seemed to have been sharpened by its temporary absence. Sometimes he was genuinely astonished at the things that the others missed. Then again, what with the number of mind-readers that seemed to be around, it was probably him who was the ignorant one most of the time.

A movement on the other side of the park caught his attention, and he smiled slightly as a figure melted out of the shadows and started heading towards him. As the light of a streetlight caught her face, she glanced up at him and shot him a satisfied smirk. His breath caught slightly, and he internally cursed himself for being so damn susceptible. Then again, he'd challenge any guy to be faced with this girl in this place, with the shadows and the slanted light adding a mystery to her already beautiful face, without being just as dumbstruck as he was.

"Hey," she said as she reached him, her hands rammed deep into the pockets of her leather jacket.

"Hey," he replied, standing up straighter from his slouched position against the tree. "How're you?"

"Can't complain. You?"

"Good." He glanced at her. "Better than good, actually."

She smirked slightly. "Oh really?"

"Really." He took a step towards her, reaching forward to brush a strand of dark hair away from her face, before using his finger to tilt her face upwards. He studied her features for a moment, still confused as to how anything could be so utterly perfect.

Her eyebrow twitched slightly. "What?"

"You're gorgeous." The words came from his mouth without his meaning them to; he mentally kicked himself again, but she didn't seem to mind. Of course she wouldn't. She craved attention like a drug. An addiction for which, for some reason, he was more than happy to be her supplier.

There was no way, he told himself, no way in hell that he could accept this as a fling. Whatever it had started as, whatever she thought it was… He hated the fact that he loved this. That he loved these meetings, loved seeing her here, loved-

He couldn't quite bring himself to say it. Not yet. It would take some time before he had enough courage to admit that to himself.

"You sure you're alright?"

He blinked, having lost himself in thought for a moment. "Yeah… yeah. Sorry. Away with the… proverbial fairies…"

She smiled knowingly, her eyes glinting with humour. "Fairies, huh? Well fancy coming back down to earth for a while for me?"

"I think I could manage that somehow." He smirked slightly, bending his head downwards.

As their lips met, he was reminded yet again of why he knew this had to be kept a secret. He couldn't risk this. He couldn't risk the others finding out and keeping him from her. He wasn't sure he could live without her anymore.

It was one hell of a crazy, messed up world, even without the walls all around them. He was messed up, she was messed up. They, their whole relationship, was completely, utterly messed up beyond all redemption, and it would mess everyone else up when they knew about it.

Yet for some reason – some unfathomable, incomprehensible reason – everything seemed to be so much more comprehensible when Melinda was there.


	11. Chapter 11

**Angst! Yey!**

**Adonia is Megan's. I was forced not to do this in the RP, so I decided to write a one-shot instead. *evil smile* Not much else to say, really. Enjoy. Sorry if the tenses get confusing, they certainly did for me...**

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><p>The pain is indescribable.<p>

It's all he can do to stay conscious. His breath comes in short gulps, each contraction of his lungs sending more waves of pain throbbing through his chest. His fingers are slippery, pressed feebly against his wound, from which warm, thick liquid gushes ceaselessly. His shirt clings to his chest, saturated with his own blood; the sickly smell is heavy in the air, making his stomach churn with nausea.

Almost more painful are the thoughts running through his head. _She shot me. She shot me._

He shifts, and a strangled scream wrenches through his clenched teeth as the bullet nudges at a bone deep within his shoulder. The agony dissipates the nausea, but it's worse. Tears burn in his eyes as he struggles to call up his master, to get help, but nothing happens. The Darkness has abandoned him. It doesn't give a damn if he lives or dies.

He'd thought he didn't care either. He volunteered for this. He'd looked right into her eyes as she pressed the gun into his chest and had been sure that he wanted her to do it. To kill him. To end the eternal misery that was his life. And it was fitting that she should do it, the one who'd made it so much more painful for so many years now.

Stupid bitch couldn't even shoot straight. Who missed at point blank range?

And now he was here, bleeding in the gutter like an animal, dying alone. Alone. His eyes flicker open; what little of the street he can see is blurred and contorted with tears. He is alone. And he doesn't know why the word springs to his mind, like he cares. Like he's surprised. Who did he expect to be there? Some journalist freak that'd make a mint from selling the photos?

No. No, he'd expected her to see him, at least. To see her handiwork spread out before her on the floor with his heart blown out of his chest. Staring up at her sightlessly, defiant in death. She'd remember him. His death would mean something to her, if to nobody else. The sight of his corpse would plague her at night, haunting her, forcing her to remember how she'd been rejected by him up to the point of death. As it was, he'd simply vanished. Disappeared in front of her as she pulled the trigger. Evaporated from her life. Exactly what she'd wanted.

His eyelids droop again, his energy seeping out from his body in a deep red pool. The stabbing pain he'd induced by moving has numbed down slightly; now the ache burns gently through his whole torso, like a blanket of fire, knotted at his shoulder. It won't be long until he loses consciousness. The thought pacifies him, calming the panic in his chest. Not long now. Not too much more to bear.

Cold, delicate fingers curl around one of his hands. He almost flinches away from the touch, but he can't move for fear of further injuring himself. And she's not going any further; he can sense her kneeling beside him, not close enough to be a threat. He allows his hand to rest in hers. There's not much he can do about it anyway.

He knows it's her. There's nobody else it can be, and besides, nobody else moves the way she does, so lithe and graceful that he can't sense her approaching. She used to take him by surprise, catching him when he didn't expect to be caught. It was part of what made her so aggravating.

He's aware that he's switched into past tense. Maybe it's a little premature, but there's no point in pretending. He will die here, with Adonia by his side, and he can no longer tell whether he's okay with it or not. It's not even worth trying to work out how he feels. The inevitability of his situation is blaringly obvious.

Why so inevitable? If he could just move his lips, just choke out some words… not even that, if he could just think them strongly enough for her to hear, she would heal him. The pain would be over, and he wouldn't have to die. A pang of fear rises within him, a dying man's final desperation. His pride isn't worth more than his life. Dignity, principles… what's the point? What's the point when it's all going to dissolve into nothing within mere moments?

Yet he still can't bring himself to do it. However afraid he is of dying, it's nothing compared to how terrified he is of being wrong. What if it's not how he always thought? Over just a few days, so many rogue thoughts and feelings have risen up from the swirling torrent of anger inside him that he can't be sure that they won't completely overpower him if he allows them to breathe. And he'd rather die a thousand times over than live on in a world where Adonia Samson was right.

His breathing becomes more audible, more rasping; he can feel blood trickling up his throat, congealing in his lungs. Her grip seems to tighten on his hand, and suddenly there's pressure on his wound, a new, intense pain glowing there as she grips his shoulder. Another cry of pain rises and dies as he descends into violent coughing, blood dripping from his mouth. He can feel the tears now staining his cheeks – traitors, the lot of them. He doesn't want to cry in front of her, especially not now, as he lies dying by her hand, being tortured by her in the last few minutes of his life.

And now somehow it feels like the pain is dying down. He's delirious, he must be, there's no way what he's feeling is real. Wisps of Darkness lick his wound, cooling the fire there, trying to heal him. Tiny fibres of bone and flesh and skin being knitted together, and he doesn't understand, because it's so pointless, and so ridiculous to believe that she'd actually do something like this…

_It's too late, darling, far too late and far too little, you know that. You shouldn't have let me go, no, you shouldn't, but it's too late to worry about that now…_

Utterly delirious.

She realises that it's futile, and the pressure disappears; a soft gasp escapes his lips. This is it, then. Any hope he had vanishes – if Adonia's given up on him, there's absolutely nothing he can do. It takes a lot to vanquish her perseverance.

He knows how he feels now. He's confused, and he's scared, and he doesn't understand why he's here, why he's dying, if she doesn't want him to. Why is he leaving this world if neither of them wants him gone? Pure defiance? Nobody else would care. They'd probably celebrate his death rather than mourn. Does she really mean that much to him that he'd give the whole world what they want in order to spite her?

What a ridiculous time to go philosophical. He almost laughs, but he doesn't have the energy. His whole body seems to be burning now, more warmth seeping from his lips, drying on his chin like rust. His lungs don't feel big enough anymore; it's all he can do to drink in enough oxygen to keep his heart beating.

He can feel her hand on his face, drenched in his blood, stroking his damp hair away from his forehead. Despite everything it soothes him, cooling his fevered mind. He's not alone. His death means something, to her, to himself, and to nobody else. There's a sort of closeness in that thought that's not perverse, not sickening.

And maybe if he'd ever been able to explain what it actually was that he wanted, they could have spared all this… this tragedy. They could have found this intimacy without the games and the hatred. They might have even been happy.

His fingers twitch slightly within her hand, pressing down on her palm. He can only hope she understands what he's trying to say, all the fear, the pain, the gratitude he would never be able to express in words even if he wasn't slipping over the edge into oblivion. It's almost a good thing that he's dying, he thinks absently. The mortification of the situation won't last long.

And he thinks he feels her squeezing his hand back, as his consciousness slowly drifts away, his last few coherent thoughts scattering through his mind like dust in the wind. He thinks he feels a tear on his cheek that isn't his, mingling with the peppered droplets of blood there. He thinks he understands, for a fleeting second, how much it all meant to her, to them both, how utterly stupid they've been, how much he cares about…

So who wins, in the end?


	12. Chapter 12

**Little drabble.**

**This is so sketchy. I need more practice, particularly with this character who will ramble on forever and ever if I let him. This was inspired by number 74 on Megan's list on awesome - the villain - which she kindly gave me permission to use. That's pretty much all you need to know to guess whose chapter this is.**

**Side note: wrote this while listening to copious amounts of ABBA, because they're totally his favourite band. Not joking.**

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><p>Every story needs a hero.<p>

_A figure stands alone upon the crest of the hill, streams of light cutting through the billowing clouds above him and striking his face, illuminating his sharp, beautiful features such that they appear to glow with an almost celestial aura. A gentle breeze catches his hair; it swirls in a halo of light gold around his face, where his eyes burn with passion, surveying the world with a shrewd and sincere gaze…_

What even makes a hero? Stereotypes dictate that heroes are the good guys. Brave, good looking, strong, with the desire to follow their consciences and save the world. Overpowering masculinity, a disarming smile, a number of female – possibly male – admirers… that's the sort of thing that makes a hero tick, right?

Well, I have all of those things. And I don't exactly hide them either. I'm brave to the point of recklessness. I don't do a thing that my conscience doesn't agree with. My appearance speaks for itself, I think. As for saving the world, why not? That would be awesome. Not to mention simply hilarious.

And yet for some reason nobody's ever called me a hero before.

Maybe it's a sign of the changing times. People don't like stereotypes anymore. They want something different. Something fresh. Someone that's not quite perfect.

An antihero.

_And with a earth-shattering crash, the world is lit up by a sudden flash of light; in that moment, a figure is visible among the trees. His face is covered with a hood, his features shadowed in mystery, yet in the brightness of that second, his eyes glint with the silver bitterness of steel. And then he's gone, a mere memory of a man, melted into the depths of the wood, never to be seen again…_

Not perfect. Well, honestly, who is? I'm certainly not, and I don't pretend to be. Unconventional, with a personal agenda? Definitely me. Mysterious, romantic, a soul haunted by its past actions… yes, yes, and essentially yes. Is haunting always negative? I don't think so.

And yet nobody who knows me that well – by which I mean pretty much at all - would refer to me as an antihero either. Any sort of hero. They'd probably laugh at the very mention of the word in the same sentence as my name. They throw the word around like paint when it comes to trivial things like sport or hospitals, but when it comes to the damn criteria that have been laid out over the centuries of human history, they turn a blind eye to a guy who fits them perfectly.

Is this it, then? Am I just doomed to be an unsung hero for all eternity? Never mentioned, just quietly going about my heroic business without so much as a thank you? They do say that geniuses are never recognised in their own time. Maybe it's the same with us heroes.

Us. As if there's anybody else like me on this planet.

Most people would call these categories ridiculous anyway. They'd probably think I was pretty weird for actually trying to fit myself to one of these various stereotypes that they think are only found in stories. But I've never been 'most people', and as such I can see the way real life conforms to these clichés, these stories that people try to distance themselves from.

Every story needs a hero. Every person needs a hero.

And every hero needs a villain.

It took me a long time to realise that. But once I did, everything became so much clearer to me. That was when I realised what I wanted to do with my life. Helping others. Bringing out the best in people. Making heroes.

I became a villain.

_The blonde-haired demon towers over the crying woman curled upon the floor, his neat white teeth flashing in a sharp grin. A knife slides from his sleeve into his hand in one smooth movement; he crouches, almost caressing the hysterical girl's cheek with the blade, his eyes gleaming with the thrill of the hunt, the chase, the kill…_

Now that… that people might agree with.

I'm not going to deny that I fit the villain description pretty perfectly. But I'd still protest my heroism in a court of law if I had to. Who's to say a guy can't be many things at once? By doing what I do, by stealing things and hurting people and being an excruciatingly rich, spoilt, gorgeous bastard, I'm giving everyone else leeway to do good. To try and stop me. To be heroes themselves. Even the most self-absorbed, unremarkable plebeian looks like a saint in comparison to me.

I know that. And so doesn't that make me the ultimate hero? Giving up my reputation for the good of others?

I don't expect recognition as such. And given how much I've done for my age, it seems likely I'll go down in history as one of the most evil people that have ever lived.

Does it bother me?

Not really. It makes me interesting. The perfect hero and the perfect villain, all bundled into one. A paradox. A legend. It makes life exciting for me. I'm my own arch enemy. How's that for the best challenge known to man?

And above everything else, it's fun.

So. Much. Fun.


	13. Chapter 13

**Hello again. :)**

**Long overdue. I will specify the character this time - it is young master William, if it's not obvious :P For Megan, because I feel bad about last chapter XDXD And the poor Cassie belongs to Sapphy.**

**Hope it makes sense... enjoy! :P**

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><p>A young man lies on a sofa, his upper back pressed against the arm, his chest bare, his eyes closed. Pale, slanted light shines through the window, draining the room of its little colour; pale blues and creams adorn the walls, the ceiling, the furniture. He is vibrant in comparison, all bronze skin and golden hair.<p>

Classical piano tinkles in the background; he's in one of his rare contemplative moods. The room is high up in the palace that is his house, set aside for this particular use, when he needs it. The whole household knows never to disturb him when he is in here. The maids never go near it. A fine layer of dust cloaks everything but him – he is a living statue among the relics of the past.

The reigning king lies among the ruin that is his kingdom.

It has been a few months since he last used the room. Since then the irritations have been many and frequent. It takes a lot to aggravate him now; he's been coping with this since he was much younger. But eventually the poison acid that is his girlfriend's so-called love for him always eats through his defences and he is forced to retreat, to heal, to remember himself. To take off the mask for a few seconds before he goes back into the spotlight for the next act of the eternal play that is his life.

Her love is a strange thing. Sometimes it's like wine; rich, indulgent, intoxicating. He tries to promote this sort of love, coax it out of her whenever he can. But too often and too soon it becomes honey. Too sweet, too thick, it clings to him. Translucently beautiful, but sickening.

And then, every so often, it turns sour. Acid, sharp and burning, tearing at him, desperate to get from him what she didn't have herself, needing stability, needing reassurance, needing, needing, needing…

He inhales deeply, as though breaking through the surface of some viscous liquid into clear air again. The window is open, cold air filling the room, causing tiny bumps to form on his arms. He opens his eyes, blue orbs framed by dark lashes, and glances across the room to the sheet of clear glass through which he can see the newly born day. He has more time here. She won't even be awake yet, curled up tightly in the sheets of an empty bed. He wishes he could be there to see the light in her eyes fade when she opens them to find him gone again.

He likes to think of himself as a martyr. Spending his life with a girl who needs constant attention, constant confirmation, constant kindness. It had got easier over the years, to a certain extent, but she always seems to want more. The words that slide so flawlessly over his lips, the lie that calm her, that gets him out of any situation, allows him anything he wants, isn't enough anymore. She needs more. Proof. Validation. And it's so hard to cope when everything she says – no longer 'Do you…?' but 'How much…?' or 'Why…?' or 'Prove to me that you...' – makes him less and less inclined to play the game anymore.

What will he lose, ultimately, if he tells her the truth? That he doesn't love her, that he never has, that he finds her company so excruciatingly painful that he needs this place to escape. That he hasn't been completely faithful to her. That he'd never planned to be. That he'd known from the start that she was vulnerable and had used that knowledge to get himself where he wanted to be.

It's true that at times he does feel something for her. It's not so much love as it is affection, but it is something. And the things she does for him make him grateful, sometimes, that she's around to keep him from boredom. She makes him feel strong, makes him feel like he holds her in his hands and can break her with one twist of his fingers if he likes. And of course, she provides him with this place. This position. All his riches. All his power.

No. He's not going to leave her just yet. He'll stick with her for a little while longer. He'll keep being her hero. And maybe start asking a few questions of his own. 'What would you do without…?' seems like a good place to begin.

He sighs gently; the room has become too cold. He considers whether to close the window, but the thought of the task proves too much for him. If he calls up one of the maids, they'll do it. Or Cassie herself. She'll do anything for him, if he gives her enough motivation. He smiles faintly; he feels restored enough to cope with her idolising again. He thinks he can play the god of her world for a little while now.

And so he lies back again, closing his eyes and calling out to her with his mind, calling words which he believes cannot be further from the truth. He doesn't realise just how close they are, just how juvenile he is - the self-proclaimed god, the celestial demon who entrances her to his will. He prevents himself from seeing that he can never break free of her, can never bring himself to damage her too much for fear that he'll never find anyone like her again. Someone who will put up with his childishness and impatience and brutality and self-importance and lies and arrogance and insecurities…

_Cassie. Come here, baby. I need you._


	14. Chapter 14

**Need to start increasing the length of these.**

**I know I've written about fifteen trillion Blaze/Sophia things. I've also written about fifteen trillion letters. I thought hey, let's combine the two. It occurred to me that something like this might have happened quite a while ago. It's set a little while after Before Evil Darkness, in the early days of the resistance, I think. Kinda depressing. Sorry. Hope you enjoy. **

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><p>Sophia,<p>

It's the twenty-first of December today. You probably won't remember the particulars or anything. It was pretty average for you, I think, although how would I know? Goodness knows what you're hiding away in that head of yours.

Darkest day of the year. I'm scared of the dark. You know that? I never used to be. I don't know why it happened. Maybe it's its connotations. The Darkness. Everything that's gone wrong since forever. One of these days I'll tell you that I'm scared. You'd want to know. That is, of course, if you don't know already. You're really observant. Wouldn't be surprised if you could read my mind.

It's also about three in the morning, so it's technically the twenty-second. It's really dark. I admit I'm shaking slightly. I keep looking up to see if you're still there. You're asleep. I feel a little bad for leaving you there alone. I'm sorry. I hope you won't notice. I'm trying to be quiet as I write so I don't disturb you. You don't get enough sleep as it is.

I was going to kill myself today.

It took a long time for me to build up the courage to write that. There it is. Blunt. If it wasn't there like that, I'd never have written it.

Life got too much for me. That's all there is to it. I'd rather die than keep going.

Explaining why I feel like this is pointless. You understand. What you don't understand is why I'd actually do it. I won't pretend I think you wouldn't care if I did.

I'm not dead. I'm not going to be dead. Not voluntarily. So this isn't a suicide note, not really. Don't panic.

I got as close as putting a gun in my mouth. I really wanted to. Really. I sat at the end of the bed with the barrel between my teeth and thought about what I wanted to see in my last moments and I turned to look at you for a few minutes and then I took the gun and put it down on the bed. And at some point I started crying but I don't know when.

I didn't do it. My resolve and my will evaporated when I looked at you.

There's a candle next to me as I write this. It's less dazzling than a torch, less likely to wake you. I only lit it to write by. An hour ago, with the gun in my hand, it was nearly pitch black. I swear when I looked at you the whole room was glowing.

I love you. You already know that. I'm in love with you. I don't know if that's ever crossed your mind. We're 'more than friends' now, whatever that means. You care about me. If I died, I don't think you'd have anyone left to turn to. Even if you don't feel as much for me as I do for you, I don't want that to happen. I'll put up with anything because I owe it to you.

But it's not just that. How can I possibly explain this?

I'm nineteen years old. Until I was fifteen I didn't believe in love of any kind. Even after that I was fairly sure I didn't have the capacity for love that others seemed to. I couldn't forgive my father. Half the time I spent with my sister was wasted on fighting with her boyfriend. Any girlfriends I managed to acquire were dropped with equal ease. Love and hope and innocence and honesty seemed beyond me.

You were brought up to be perfect. In love from five years old, obedient, beautiful, talented, the most pure and innocent thing I think I've ever laid eyes on. Within a few days you had me feeling guilty and I had you riding a motorbike. Influencing each other in a way I'd never let myself be influenced before.

A matter of months ago you tried to seduce me and I went off about morality. We'd passed each other and had to turn back round again. Now we're there. We met in the middle. Rebelling for justice.

I wanted to die because of everything I'd lost. Friends, family, rights. I lost it because of you. Specifically I chose to lose it because of you. I don't mean you drove me to suicide. I've already said you drove me out of it.

I knew I was in love with you. I didn't know how much. In some sort of baptism of fire I realised you're what I've wanted for my whole life. You're perfect. There's not a single thing wrong with you. I would marry you. This second, if you said yes and the world wasn't so screwed up. I'd have kids with you. If you wanted. I'd die for you in a heartbeat and I'm not giving up my life in any way that's not in your service.

You've brought me to a place where we've got the worst of both worlds. Rebels enough to be condemned, saints enough to be martyrs. There's nowhere else in the world I'd rather be. I don't want to do anything to disturb the balance. I don't want to touch you, to take away the innocence I wish I still had. I don't want to give in to my fear, to run away and hide. I need to stay here, immoveable, for you.

I'm not going to tell you what I did today. You'll find this someday, whether in our house or in the post or anywhere else. It constitutes my will in a world where I have no legal status or value. You have changed my life. Whether you're reading this tomorrow or when you're one hundred, whether you love me like I love you or not, whatever happens between us, you need to know.

And I had to confess it somehow. I am sorry. I was so close to taking away another friend from you. I hope you can forgive me.

Thank you. Thank God for you.

I love you more than I can say.

You just said my name. My heart leapt. I think you're what's keeping it beating now.

I'm going back to join you. Goodnight.


	15. Chapter 15

**Female debut. Bear with me.**

**Ever so slightly pretentious, but writing often is :P All characters mentioned are, unusually, mine. Apologies for any inconsistencies; I haven't RPed this character in about a year, and even then she only lasted a few days. But I wanted to develop the other character's backstory by use of her, etc, etc. Hope you enjoy :)**

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><p><em>There's a boy at the back of the class who is watching me.<em>

The words are simple, almost completely monosyllabic, but they resonate in her mind like the echoing strains of a bell, repeated at intervals, a chiming reminder to adjust her position, play with her hair, make a pertinent comment; she shifts constantly, like a beautiful fish in crystal clear waters, flitting here and there and glinting a thousand colours in the persistent gaze of the sun. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so it is said; if not for the beholder, there is no beauty. She learns to be beautiful from his eyes, uses the light that shines from them to sculpt herself by.

He is the boy who makes her realise she is powerful beyond measure. It is in his quiet attention that she finds her self-worth. He is exactly what she needs; he is patient, constant and unassuming; his admiration makes her an object of value that he never has the confidence to reach for, and his desires, eternally internal, have been know to her since the very first moments of their acquaintance. His whole being, she thinks, has been known to her since the beginning. There is nothing extraordinary about this specimen, save for his astounding rationality; he does not try to pursue her because he knows he will never reach her. Only the sun's distant rays meet the glittering skin of its cold blooded beloved, none of its warmth, none of its passionate blazing.

But she needs them to survive, to guide her as she flits through her hazy days. She begins to form her own attachments, and poses examples to her unwitting lover, using his reactions as research for her courtships. She watches the risings and fallings of his hopes as light entertainment, an amusing retreat from the business of attracting her more promising suitors, and that of advancing her blossoming career of beauty. For both she has him to thank; she changes her clothes, intensifies his devotion, escalates her value.

They are dancing, a spiralling ascent, growing ever more tightly bound together. With every new attention she receives, she is fuelled to develop new causes for attention. He is lifting her to blasphemous heights, letting her glow ever more brightly, and she trusts him completely; not for a second does she doubt his adoration. He will never falter in his overpowering, unconditional love for her, of this both of them are confident.

There are still those who would have them tied down, but their parents, like cords taut with straining to reign them in, have no choice in the end but to give in; they break and become entangled with each other, binding their children together permanently in such a way that causes one's rapture and the other's distress. Nothing, not circumstance, not duty, nothing will separate them now. Nothing will prevent her perpetual rise into celestial realms, his idolisation driving her with ceaseless desperation.

And, content to believe she is secure, she no longer bothers to remember what propels her.

She does not think of his mind, of his cool reason and rationality which shields the fevered passion of his heart. It is not important to her how he wants to live his life – it cannot be important to him either; it has nothing to do with her. She tempts him away from any will of his own, forces his orbit to shift by means of enticing gravity. He is needed to attend to her. Once he has been thus constantly employed, she is secure.

She does not think of his jealousy, of the sharp metallic pangs that course through his being when her attentions are directed towards more desirable men. She does not feel the hot flush of anger which curdles his patience, shattering the little hope he has begun to piece together again. Her actions make no difference, in the long run, to how he acts towards her; a sharp word here or there, a soulful glance across the table when he thinks it will go unnoticed, but what does it matter? He is still fixated on her, and the most trivial of gestures will set things right between them again.

She does not think, mostly; after a while, the pattern become a routine, what was once tactic becomes instinct. She can only sometimes remember why she continues to show off to the boy she now thinks of as her brother, and she doesn't care enough to invest any time in thinking about it. She is long practiced in the art of attraction now, to the extent that whispers of her flirtations have begun to spread; these only increase the amount of interest she builds around herself. She feels alive, mysterious, an object of desire and envy, causing disturbances wherever she walks. The degrading names sweep over her head; she doesn't care. It does nothing but aid her ascent. Her father speaks to the principal about the slanderous rumours; her brother gets into a fight with one of her potentials; her mother scoffs and denounces them all as jealous; they won't hear a word against her. Her guardian angels. She won't come to any harm under their watch.

She is invincible, as all young people are in their own minds, and blissfully unaware of her delusion. There is no path but upwards for her. She never dreams of falling.

Inevitably, she will fall. Tragically, it will be earlier than anyone anticipates. Ironically, it will be her own fault.

And the shining star she seeks to be, the goddess that she modelled herself upon when she saw it in a boy's heart, will only continue in that place; more beautiful, more terrible, more influential and passionate and glorious than anything he had envisioned before she tried to make it a reality. His angel gone, he knows nothing else but to keep climbing, keep bearing his invisible beloved until she reaches the heights that they both believe belong to her. He cannot bear to tear his eyes away from where she ought to be, to look down to earth again and see her body lying broken on the floor, hair splayed, wounds seeping ink black as the heart that once beat within her.

But she knows none of this as she smiles with surprised gratification, eleven years old and innocently relishing the new and exciting feeling of a little boy's clear brown-eyed gaze steadily fixed on the back of her head.


	16. Chapter 16

**So my so-called friend Eilidh made me write this...**

**Paha, I jest, I jest. :P It was her birthday a few days ago, and I offered her a one-shot. Bad mistake. She asked for Zaze. I am not capable of writing Zaze. So I played around with some ideas in my mind until I could figure out a way of writing something that vaguely had some Zaze in it without it being horrifically cracky. Guess what I ended up with? Puuuuure crack. XD**

**I don't even know why this exists. It's not quite complete - kinda an introduction type thing - and maybe I'll continue the story if I can be bothered. But mostly this is just because Eilidh asked for some Zaze. There was have it. XD**

**So Happy Birthday m'dear, and may all the cake in the world be of nourishment to you. What?**

**Zeb is Megan's. Mia is Sapphy's. I have almost certainly mucked them up beyond all recognition - well, actually, in Mia's case that was the idea. I'll shut up and let you suffer the torture for yourselves.**

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><p>Being kissed awake isn't exactly an unpleasant experience.<p>

It's also not an experience that gives you much information. From a state of unconsciousness and mental reconfiguration, you slowly become aware of lips pressed against yours. Whether it is a dream or reality, you don't know; whether they are a person you're prepared to kiss, and whether they're actually supposed to be in your bed, you have no idea. In your blissful, dreamy state of mind, the conventional response would probably be that it is a dream, you are prepared to kiss them and they should be in your bed. These subconscious assumptions generally manifest themselves in the returning of the kissing, usually before you're even aware that you've made them.

And there you have my defence, your honour. The fact that all three of my subconscious assumptions were wrong was completely out of my control.

Actually it was only when, after a number of long seconds which I would rather never think about again, I finally pulled away and rested my forehead against that of the girl who had so charmingly interrupted me that any sort of alarm bell began to ring in my head. Even then, that particular bell was labelled 'I don't remember going to sleep with a girl… how much did I drink last night?' which happened to be rather quiet and dainty as alarm bells go. It wasn't even close to the funeral peals which would have been going had I realised what was actually going on.

No, that particular cacophony started up when I heard a horrifically familiar, and resolutely male, voice murmur the words, "Morning beautiful."

That was when I opened my eyes and saw Zeb Cray's face about half an inch away from mine.

His face isn't exactly appealing at the best of times – not to me, anyway – but for it to be the first thing I see in the morning at such close range was pretty much the stuff of nightmares. And with those words echoing in my head and the dawning realisation of what I had just done combined, it's hardly surprising that my first reaction was to scream – a high-pitched, piercingly loud shriek – and scramble away from him, half falling out of the bed and backing away to the far wall, still staring at him with eyes wider than I thought was physically possible.

We stood there silently for a moment, staring at each other. I was feeling a little too nauseous to really recognise the expression of surprise and what was verging on vulnerability on his face. It seemed like an eternity before he finally broke the silence.

"Mia?" His voice was quiet and concerned. "What's going on?"

"I'm not Mia, you sick fucking-" I stopped mid-sentence, a hand jumping to my throat involuntarily. My voice… what the hell had happened to my voice?

He got out of bed slowly, moving around to stand closer to me. "What's the matter? What's wrong?"

I couldn't say anything; I was practically shaking with fear. He seemed taller than usual, impossibly tall, so it seemed, and his eyes were filled with an expression that I'd never seen before and had certainly never thought he was capable of. Now that I looked around the room – anywhere but at him – it occurred to me that this wasn't my bedroom at all; it was bigger, more decorative, with possessions that didn't belong to me. Perfume and jewellery were elegantly arranged on a small table by the window. Jewellery which, to a certain extent, I recognised. It was almost with a sense of the inevitable that I looked down tentatively to discover that the body I was occupying was shorter, thinner, decidedly more female.

The sound that broke the silence was a stream of the most horrendously foul language I've ever heard coming from my sister's mouth.

It seemed even Zeb was fazed by this unusual demonstration of obscenity from the person he believed to be his girlfriend. "Mia?" he asked again, his voice strangely tentative. I didn't know how to respond; with a half sob, I grabbed the phone that lay charging on the bedside table and ran from the room, charging towards the bathroom and slamming the door behind me, bolting it as I did so.

I could hear Zeb behind me, shouting and banging on the door. I ignored him, taking the phone and attempting to manoeuvre my way to the contacts list. Infuriatingly, tears were streaming down my cheeks and blurring my vision; I swiped them away angrily as I found my own number and dialled it, pressing the phone to my ear.

It was an annoyingly long time before anyone picked up; a muffled 'Hello?' came from the other end. I couldn't really recognise the voice. It sounded a little too sleepy for recognition.

"Mia?" I half whispered, my girly voice shaking with suppressed sobs. "Is that you?"

"Of course it's me." The most surreal sound I have ever heard became known to me at that moment; my own voice, slightly deeper and with a more pronounced accent than I had thought came from my own mouth, came through the phone marked with the familiar impatient snap that Mia often used when interrupted this early in the morning. "Who is this? What do you want?"

I wasn't capable of saying anything else; more pathetic tears were dripping down my face. There was a silence on the other end as well. I could almost hear Mia's – or my own – brain cells waking up, beginning to work, wondering why her room was tiny and why there wasn't a blonde man lying in her bed, and possibly why she felt so much taller than usual…

A burst of confusion eventually hit my ears, and I found myself continuing to be unable to say anything. Zeb was still hammering away on the other side of the door, threatening to knock it down if I didn't open up in a matter of seconds. I ignored him – I certainly didn't want to have to look at him again so soon after what had just happened, if ever. It took a few minutes for me to calm down and stop my irritatingly small body from shaking with sobs. By that time silence had fallen on the other end of the phone as well; perhaps Mia was trying to calm herself down and prevent herself from stabbing something, as was generally the reaction my own body dictated when something unthinkable happened.

"Blaze?" she finally whispered, a note of uncertainty in her voice.

"Yeah?" I managed to whisper back.

"What the hell is going on?"

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><p><strong>To be continued... or not. :P<strong>


	17. Chapter 17

**I finally finished! *fireworks and jubilations* You would not believe how much writer's block I have been struggling with. Still, here we finally are - extremely long and nonsensical, Cillian makes his debut drabble. Steve is Megan's, Bryony is Sapphy's. This is weird, and possibly a little inconsistent with his character in the RP. But hey. Enjoy :)**

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><p>Self-Indulgent Contemplations Of A Child in Care<p>

Or: Meaningless Drivel Written To Appease the Perpetually Invasive Education Officers

By Cillian Maeveen

Having spent far too long preparing a suitably obnoxious title for this piece of work, which, as I think we both know, I have no desire to write, and you have no desire to mark, I shall now proceed to examine my own life as though I have no sense of privacy, and pretend to analyse myself despite the fact that I believe psychology to be a load of crap which I am only studying this year because I am in need of a fourth AS subject, and it is a truth universally acknowledged that any student in possession of good bullshitting facilities must get an A in psychology.

As I so eloquently expressed in my title, I am a junior citizen, and I am not now living, nor have I ever lived, with my parents. This latter fact means that I am lacking in the factor which bears the most influence on the lives of the majority of individuals. The stereotype of care home children generally involves stealing, drugs, rudeness, poor school grades – ahem – early loss of virginity and other 'unwholesome' activities, which are usually attributed to the absence of a parental figure or other figure of authority who can be looked up to as a role model. I myself fit this stereotype very badly, as four out of five of those attributes do not apply to me. I will leave you to make your own mind up as to which one does. Nevertheless, I would not say that not having parents has made no impact on me at all. For example, I am apparently extremely prone to using triple negatives in sentences. For another example, I am, as I think anyone would tell you, extremely anti-social, and will quite happily sit in a corner of a crowded room without speaking for hours on end rather than engage in communication with anyone other than my very closest friends.

'Very closest friends' is a technical term which I use myself on an infrequent basis, by the way. I sometimes shorten it to 'only friends' or, more commonly, 'bloody pains in the arse'. There are two aforementioned pains in the arse, both of whom you will be aware of and need no introduction, but I will introduce them anyway both for the purposes of pretending I care about this essay, and also because I refuse to let either of them get away without being contaminated by association with me.

Steve Cray is my cousin, my only living relative, and the closest thing I have to a pet. If my suspicions are correct, he is at least part gorilla. The fact that I have managed to delude myself into believing this proves beyond all measure of a doubt how much I love him, given that the majority of people who know him consider his grunting, his animalistic manners and his sheer stupidity to be traits which make him an extremely repulsive human, rather than what would be a fairly average gorilla. Nevertheless, the amount of time I have spent with Steve over the years has enabled me to cope with the ceaseless irritation which he causes, although I will admit that scars, physical and emotional, have been gained on both sides. He is, to my utter disgust and embarrassment, my best friend. We grew up in the care home together and there aren't many shaping events in my life which he hasn't been a part of, one way or another, and it is probably as a result of this that he is the person who I think I 'open up to' the most – either that, or the fact that in many cases I don't actually have a choice in the matter. Steve has represented the family which I never had for the whole of my life, and as such has acted as a parental or sibling figure on occasion in the past. I stress the phrase 'on occasion', because given that he is a month younger than me and considerably less mature, it is usually me who has to act as the responsible patriarch of our family of two. I am sure this early responsibility on my shoulders has left me with further terrible soul-scarring, but my pseudo-scientific senses are tingling and telling me that I cannot possibly comment upon this while my burden is still very much in place. Funny that aforementioned tingly senses are in exactly the same place as my can't-be-arsed senses.

The other member of the elite group dubbed 'very closest friends' is the sole person in the world to whom I have no obligation whatsoever to like, but have ended up doing so anyway. Perhaps it's the similarity in surnames. Bryony Mae also grew up in the care home with Steve and me, and is perhaps the least painful pain in the arse the world has ever seen; the fact that she is so damn kind and patient and on occasion rightly stern enough to terrify the both of us into submission is what makes her so irritating. She also voluntarily hangs around with us, which automatically makes her both a force to be reckoned with, and possibly insane. I am deeply fond of her, although I don't believe I have ever told her this and certainly don't plan to, and am thoroughly proud of myself regarding my friendship with her in that I have never even flirted with her, let alone attempted anything more serious. This might not seem like an especially impressive feat to you, but then you are female yourself and therefore you probably do not fully appreciate how attractive a girl like Bryony can be sometimes. I will here assure you that if you were a male teacher, I would not be entering into any sort of discussion as to the attractiveness of one of your pupils with you. All these things considered, I think I may safely conclude that I am not as much of a misogynist as certain other male members of my family, despite the protests you may hear from certain female members of my inner circle regarding various comments I may have made in the past.

As I said, I am extremely anti-social, which probably explains the lack of people I would consider 'close' to me. If I were forced to analyse why I think this is, which, given that that's what I'm being marked on, I essentially am, I would put it down to the fact that I am much more aware of death than most people. This is in part due to the early deaths of my parents, and the deaths of my friends' parents, but also the fact that I have been physically close to death on a number of occasions. As such I am not prepared to waste time on people whom I do not find interesting, and those that I do find interesting generally disappoint me enough after a while for me to move on. After a few years of this attitude I came to the conclusion that the vast majority of humankind is not worth wasting time on. I will speak to someone if they speak to me, but unless they engage my interest I am not inclined to continue doing so for very long. This makes forming new relationships extremely difficult, understandably, but contrary to what some people might believe, I am very much _voluntarily _taciturn, and therefore it is less of an issue to me than one might expect.

Perhaps the only real issue which my lack of interest in humankind provokes is the problem of finding a romantic attachment. I notice that this is included on your extremely helpful list of topics to include in this essay, and while I find this particularly intrusive, my private life is practically entirely laid out before your eyes already, so it would seem pointless to protest at this late stage in proceedings. I have never had a formal girlfriend, due mostly to the reasons expressed above – I have not yet met a girl who I admire enough, with the obvious exception of my friend Bryony, whom I have already deemed categorically out of bounds. This, of course, doesn't stop the opposite sex from being extremely attractive, and as such many of my actions or comments have been interpreted as sexist or misogynistic, which almost certainly will not aid any long term plans I may have of acquiring a partner. As it is, it seems likely that I will never marry and will spend my life flitting between a series of brief affairs, unless by some miracle I develop a kind and caring nature, and cease to pursue my vocation of being a snarky and self-absorbed son of a bitch. As for children, the only ones I believe I will be allowed anywhere near are those of my frequently cited friends, and even they will be given strict instructions by their parents not to believe a word I say nor to imitate anything I do.

I suppose that, having established what will not happen to me, I should now specify what I think will. With any luck, my career in theatre will take off once I have left university, firstly as an actor and subsequently as a director. (My chosen line of work, due both to my interest in theatre, and the frequently changing supply of good-looking women who will be trying to get on my good side.) However luck and I have never got on well, so it seems more likely that I'll end up working as a male prostitute on the streets of London or another similar large city. I'd probably be quite a high class prostitute, to be honest; among my many talents I can sing and play the piano, so I'd probably be fairly good at faux-wooing my various employers. This line of work also wouldn't be entirely undesirable for me, given that I have developed an interest in investigating other people's private lives. This seems to be a family trait; both Steve and I have extremely intrusive natures, which for me manifests itself mostly in acquiring and reading other people's diaries. If one takes into account the fact that diaries are usually found in people's bedrooms, and then puts two and two together and acquires, hopefully, four, we can see that I would ideally not only be paid in money, but in the private lives of my clients.

Privacy. You don't get much in a care home, especially not with Steve as a surrogate brother. It makes you much more sensitive about your own secrets, or at least, it does with me. That's why I'm quite astonished at having given so much personal information up to this point. Very few people at school – teachers or students or otherwise – know anything about me other than that I'm the quiet care home kid who looks a bit emo and therefore is suspected of cutting his wrists. The reason they don't know is because I don't tell them, and I have no intention of telling them. So why…?

Why doesn't matter. Here we go, then. You've seen more than most of me. Have my heart as well. Be warned; it's not pretty.

I mentioned my parents. I don't mention them often, but they're nearly always on my mind. What happened to them? I have a letter, one that my mum wrote to my dad, and I think she knows she's going to die. How did she know that? What happened to her? What happened to him, if she tried to protect him? Why did I get out? And if Steve's parents died at about the same time, were they all connected somehow? I've thought it over more times than I can count, but it never makes any more sense. And I don't know if I'm ever going to find an answer. Do you know how… how claustrophobic that thought is? That you'll never know why things turned out the way they did? That you'll have to live your life knowing that something happened to you, but never knowing what it was? I've been affected by whatever happened to my parents, more deeply than I think even I understand. I'll probably never get to uncover aspects of myself that would have been dominant had they been around. Like the performing. I live it and breathe it. I can't get enough of it. But I put too much of myself into it, and I can't let anyone see that, in case they see how messed up I am. How screwed up and vulnerable. How much I care. I don't think even Steve sees that. I don't let him. If there's one thing I've tried my utmost to hide, from him and from everyone, it's how much I fucking care about that kid. He's my brother and my best friend and my responsibility, from his school grades to his life choices. Screw my own life; I've been his parent since I realised he didn't have one, and I will look after him first and foremost until it's no longer my responsibility and I've passed him on to Bryony. And then I'll leave their wedding and go home and cry and drink until I lose all sense of time, and when I wake up I can start my life and forget about my only family having left to start one of his own and forget about having to abandon any thoughts I might once have had for her, because they're meant to be, and even someone as cynical and brooding as me can see that. And that's exactly what I can't let anyone else know, which is particularly difficult when it comes to Steve because the little git can always see right through me, because if they do Steve will mock me and Bryony will pity me and they'll both be embarrassed and I might screw everything up for them. So I lie. Like I lie about other things. Like I tell them what to do and how Steve needs to stop invading people's privacy and work harder and stop chasing after girls and stop being so vain, when I read diaries and write sarcastic essays and sneak out to bars every weekend by myself and wear bloody eyeliner when the mood takes me. I'm a liar and a hypocrite and I can only pray that when the two of them realise they can find comfort in each other and make it without me.

Hell.

Well I'm not handing this in, that's for fucking certain. It belongs in a bin, ripped into a thousand pieces. If not burned. Burned would be better. Steve is not getting his hands on this.

Better start my real essay now, I guess.

Why the hell am I still writing?


	18. Chapter 18

**Finally.**

**This is kinda exploiting some RP ideas I had, but pff, that just means I'll have to think up some new ones. Never a bad thing. :P Future AU, for Megan's birthday, belatedly. :) Happy birthday, you oldie. ;)**

**Adonia is Megan's. (Sorry if I ruined her! D:) Various Darkness/resistance members unnamed belong to Megan, Sapphy and Eilidh. Aaron and the ever-pathetic Blaze are mine. This is cheesier than a quattro formaggi pizza. Enjoooooy! :D**

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><p>You could cut the tension in here with a rolling pin, or something else equally as blunt.<p>

There's a quiet murmur of voices; TV crews and reporters are muttering to each other as they sort out their equipment and establish what angle they're hoping to take on this particular story. Impartial observers, as ever, chatter softly about what they believe the outcome is going to be. Anyone who's actually involved in the goings on is silent, of course. You can tell who they are. Members of the Resistance in the small crowd gathered in the seats at the back of the courtroom, their jaws tight, their eyes hard. The more important ones at the front, trying not to look terrified, and not in every case succeeding.

They have good reason to be afraid. Directly opposite them, ten ex-leaders sit staring at them, their expressions ranging from furious to positively gleeful. They're well secured in specially designed seats, and shielded from the public by several sheets of thick glass, but it doesn't make them any the less visible. He can only thank his lucky stars – if he in fact has such things – that he's not in their direct eyeline. His own seat is by the adjacent wall, from where he can see both sides reasonably well. Darkness followers on one side. Resistance members on the other. Traitors in the middle, like umpires at some horrific tennis match.

He glances across again at the seat opposite his, on the other side of the courtroom. She smiles back at him, or at least, her lips move. It doesn't reach her eyes. He doesn't even try, just keeping his gaze locked on hers. What he's trying to achieve – comfort, solidarity, reassurance – he doesn't know. Maybe she needs it. In any case, he suddenly doesn't want to look anywhere else. He can't trust any other pair of eyes right now. Anger or mockery or disappointment, even from someone he couldn't give less of a damn about, wasn't something he could take.

"Order in court!"

His heart leaps; he can't help but tear his eyes away from Adonia's and look down at the bailiff, who's now standing in the centre of the court and calling them all to stop talking. The jury are returning from their discussion. The Resistance chose carefully; one ex-lawyer from each zone, avoiding anyone who had any particular vendettas or murdered relatives. They still look like grumpy bastards with sticks up their rears, but then again, most people do. He almost smiles at the language he finds himself using. He's clearly been spending too much time with Adonia recently.

The Zone One representative stands up and moves to the centre of the room. Nobody is talking now. Everyone waits with bated breath for the verdict. His hands are shaking slightly; he folds them, placing them in his lap. He's not going to be scared. He's not going to give anyone here the satisfaction of seeing him afraid.

"Aaron Kingley."

He's first, of course. Alphabetical order, just to be diplomatic. He feels nearly every pair of eyes in the room swerve over to him, feels the surge in loathing from their owners. He keeps his gaze steadily fixed on the representative, whose mouth is opening to pronounce his sentence…

"Execution."

And relief. The hatred ebbs, the eyes turn away. His expression doesn't change. He's expected it. That doesn't matter. The knot of tension and fear in his chest remains the same. _And now what…?_

"Adonia Samson."

He hasn't looked at Adonia; he does now. She's staring at him, her eyes wide. He can't see too clearly, but he thinks she's on the verge of tears. Because she loves him. But he doesn't matter; what happens to him doesn't matter a damn if…

"Execution."

Her eyes close. His widen with disbelief, fury, panic, terror – he freezes on the spot, the rest of the woman's words fading into nothingness. His mind is reeling from the shock of the invisible blow. It feels like a full hour before he finally pulls himself together; he stands up, a strangled "No!" tearing from his throat. The eyes spin back to him; he moves forward to try and reach her, because they can't stay here, he has to get her away from these people, these murderers, but hands grab him and hold him back, forcing him back down into the chair. He can hardly see now, his vision is blurred – tears? – but he struggles against them anyway, desperate to get away with her. He's vaguely aware of mocking laughs coming from the direction of the leaders, but he pays no attention to them, still wrestling with his captors like the world's about to end. He won't let her die. He will not let her die.

"Aaron?"

He looks up, and his eyes narrow into a glower as he sees the resistance leader looking down at him with an expression obnoxiously close to pity. He wrenches his hands away from his captors, whose restraints suddenly slacken as though they'd never been there, and swings a punch at the man; he has the dual satisfaction of his shocked expression and a sickening crack. He staggers back, clutching his face and swearing indignantly. Gasps cut through the muttered voices from across the room. Someone laughs. Aaron barely notices, taking advantage of his new found freedom and darting out of his seat, across the court to where she's sitting, staring at him like he's grown a second head or something.

"Aaron-"

He grabs her hand, pulling her to her feet. "Come on."

"What the-"

"Don't talk, just run." He glances around the room, trying to find a way through the multitude of people now meandering around, the various guards glaring or staring at him in disbelief. He starts moving forwards, but he's pulled back, her grip on his hand just as tight as his is on hers.

"What's wrong with you?"

He turns to stare at her. "Didn't you fucking hear them? They're going to kill you. We have to get out of here now."

"They…" She looks almost scared, but for some reason he doesn't think it's for her life. "This isn't funny, Aaron."

"Do I look like I'm fucking joking?" He's surprised they haven't shot them both already actually; he shoots a glance back at the guards, but they're not coming after them. In fact the only person even looking their way is the resistance guy, who's over on the other side of the room just staring at him, his face now soaked in blood.

_What the hell is going on?_

He turns back to Adonia, frowning. "We… why aren't they trying to kill us?"

"Because they're not supposed to be?" Her voice is slow and patronising, but he doesn't even feel the slightest twinge of irritation beneath the relief that's starting to rise from deep within his chest. "We got let off, remember? Weren't you _listening_?"

_We got let off. We got let off. You got let off. _The rest of her words blur into a recurring chorus in his mind. _She's going to be okay. She's standing there and talking and breathing and she's going to keep doing that for years and years and years and years…_

"Hello? Earth to Aaron? Are you still-?"

He cuts her off for the third time, taking her face between his hands and kissing her.

It's not the first time he's kissed anyone – not, apparently, by a long way. It's not even the first time he's kissed her. But for the first time in his life, he understands why he's doing it. It's this pure, exquisite, ecstatic relief that's coursing through him, that has nothing to do with his own life or his own gain or his own survival. It's this desperation to let her know in whatever language she understands that she means the world to him, even if it utterly incinerates his pride to do so. Even if she didn't love him back, even if she weren't kissing him back right now, he'd still be the happiest man alive right now because she would be alive and she would have the rest of her life ahead of her. It's selfless.

He's being selfless. That's… that's quite new to him. And he's happy. That's pretty new as well.

Someone's still laughing. It's a cold laugh, a bitter, mocking laugh, almost manical. He doesn't know who's laughing, but he can guess. It's a laugh that reminds, a laugh that points out the world as it still is, corrupt and perverted and painful, a laugh that signifies the death that's only postponed, the evil that's not entirely gone, the misery whose sting keeps hurting. A laugh he used to hear resonating in his ears every minute of every day. A laugh he listened for. A laugh of the life he's rejected.

He blocks it out. Good won his battle. He's done fighting.


End file.
